said Oleg Dorin of Saint-Gobain. - CCIFR
said Oleg Dorin of Saint-Gobain. - CCIFR
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French Retail Spreads<br />
Out in St. Petersburg<br />
By Maria Buravtseva<br />
THE RANKS<br />
OF 'ASHAN'<br />
AND 'DECATLON'<br />
STORES ARE<br />
EXPANDING IN<br />
RUSSIA, BUT<br />
ST. PETERSBURG<br />
IS A TOUGH<br />
MARKET.<br />
Checking out. Auchan and Decathlon face an uphill battle for winning customers in the well-served Petersburg market.<br />
ST. PETERSBURG — France’s Mulliez<br />
family isn’t well-known in Russia, but<br />
its impact here is widely felt: Russians<br />
<strong>of</strong>ten buy groceries and items for their<br />
apartments at Auchan, home goods at<br />
Leroy Merlin and sportswear and sports equipment<br />
at Decathlon, all <strong>of</strong> which belong to the<br />
super-rich business family.<br />
Those chains are gearing up here in the northern<br />
capital, launching more stores and widening<br />
its retail footprint. Already there are six Ashan<br />
superstores and two Leroy Merlin superstores, and<br />
a sports big-box store for Decathlon is on its way.<br />
What’s more, the chains is looking to new spots in<br />
southern Russia and Siberia.<br />
In December, Auchan, known in Russian as<br />
“Ashan,” opened another big-box store in St.<br />
Petersburg. The store, called Ashan Summer, is<br />
located in the just-opened retail complex called<br />
Leto, or Summer, on the Pulkovskoye Shosse.<br />
Auchan invested roughly 450 million rubles ($16<br />
million) into the store, which has a retail area <strong>of</strong><br />
about 8,700 square meters.<br />
Ashan Summer <strong>of</strong>fers customers more than<br />
40,000 different items for purchase. About 80<br />
percent <strong>of</strong> the merchandise sold in the store<br />
is produced by Russian companies, with the<br />
remainder imported from abroad. The director<br />
<strong>of</strong> Ashan Russia, Ludwig Oline, <strong>said</strong> that four<br />
more Ashan hypermarkets will be opening. One<br />
will be in Ufa, while the others will be in Kazan,<br />
Chelyabinsk and Samara.<br />
Ashan is an active player on a major scale in<br />
Russia — but its market position is weaker in St.<br />
Petersburg compared with other chains because<br />
<strong>of</strong> the saturated market <strong>of</strong> big-box stores in the<br />
northern capital, <strong>said</strong> Tatyana Bobrovskaya, a<br />
senior analyst at Moscow-based financial firm<br />
Metropol.<br />
According to figures from AC Nielsen, as<br />
<strong>of</strong> the middle <strong>of</strong> 2010, there were on average<br />
two big-box stores for every 1 million people<br />
in Russia. There were about three superstories<br />
per 1 million people in Moscow, while the<br />
highest count was found in St. Petersburg, where<br />
they numbered about 11 per 1 million people<br />
last year.<br />
The average for Europe is about 14 superstores<br />
per 1 million people, Bobrovskaya <strong>said</strong>.<br />
Thus far, this European level <strong>of</strong> higher market<br />
saturation exists only in St. Petersburg, and<br />
extending that saturation throughout all <strong>of</strong><br />
Russia would be a huge effort, she <strong>said</strong>.<br />
The hypermarket sector is the fastestgrowing<br />
sector, and right now Auchan’s top<br />
priority is developing stores in the regions,<br />
Bobrovskaya <strong>said</strong>.<br />
Meanwhile, other companies in the Mulliez<br />
portfolio are spreading out in Russia. The<br />
first Decathlon sports superstore opened in<br />
St. Petersburg earlier this year. The second is<br />
planned for the Leto mall, where there is already<br />
the Auchan mega-store.<br />
In all, Decathlon has nine such stores in Russia,<br />
with five in Moscow and one each in Rostov-on-<br />
Don, Krasnodar, Voronezh and St. Petersburg.<br />
Plans to develop stores in St. Petersburg will<br />
depend on the supply <strong>of</strong> quality retail space, a<br />
manager with the Decathlon chain <strong>said</strong>.<br />
About 70 percent <strong>of</strong> products sold at<br />
Auchan superstores are made in Russia,<br />
and St. Petersburg stores work with about<br />
100 local suppliers.<br />
ANDREI MAKHONIN / VEDOMOSTI<br />
29