Mercadona, El Corte Inglés and Inditex among the world top 50 trading giants

MADRID | The Spanish daily publication El País has gained access to the results of the study Global Powers of Retailing that Deloitte and the magazine Stores carry out on a yearly basis and that will be officially presented next Sunday in New York. The report classifies the main 250 world retail companies and in the present edition three Spanish companies, Mercadona, El Corte Inglés and Inditex are included in the top 50. Eroski is also on the list, in the 98th position.

Mercadona has an advantage of four or five places over El Corte Inglés although both move down the list and are in the 42nd and 47th position in retail sales in the world. The Valencian firm founded in 1977 and chaired by Juan Roig increased its net turnover in 2010 (the year the classification has followed) by 5.8% up to €15.245 billion.

Actually, the total turnover of the group El Corte Inglés (€16.413 billion) is even higher but the classification is based on retail sales which do not include public tenders, direct sales to companies outside the retail channel and other items.

“Of the four Spanish firms, the only one that advanced positions in the list is precisely Inditex that gained one position going up to the 49th place. The group founded by Amancio Ortega and chaired by Pablo Isla is now also one of the top 50 global giants that has experienced the most growth in sales during the last five years although it has not made any major acquisitions.

“As for Eroski, due to falling sales and the depreciation of the euro against the dollar (currency on which the study is based) it has lost 17 positions in a year going down to the 98th place.

“Wal-Mart maintains itself at the top of the world ranking, far ahead of France’s Carrefour and Britain’s Tesco. The chain of drugstores Walgreen is the only novelty in the list of top 10 retailers, which monopolise 29.4% of the retail sales of the 250 members of the list. These 250 firms increased their sales by 5.4% compared to last year’s 1.2%.”