Spar Asia-Pacific continues to post solid growth, with the Thailand network already up to 30 stores just a year after its launch.
The global grocery retail banner now has a presence in six countries in Asia Pacific. Spar China is expanding through multi-format stores in major cities of southern and northern China adopting the banner, with the network now totalling 408.
Spar Australia was also singled out in the group’s annual results for concluding “an exceptional year of growth” with sales up 14 per cent last year.
Spar International, which describes itself as the world’s largest food retail voluntary chain, has seen strong, continued growth with retail sales of €34.5 billion (US$39.9 billion) for the year to December 31. That represents an increase of 5.3 per cent year on year on a constant currency basis.
The results were released at the 63rd International Spar Congress, which this year is being held in Bangalore, India.
Spar International CEO Tobias Wasmuht said last year was one of extraordinary growth for the brand worldwide, with sustained growth across all 48 markets where it operates.
“Our strategy launched in 2016 entitled ‘Spar: Better Together’, is showing strong signs of benefitting our Spar country operations internationally, as we reap the significant economies of scale and synergies of our growing international presence and expansion. Over a two-year period we have added 600 new stores and 500,000sqm of sales area and as a consequence have grown revenue by €3.2 billion.”
Wasmuht said global trends of health and wellness are increasingly “becoming the new norm” as highlighted by the fast roll out of the award-winning Spar Natural concept in Spain, Italy, Russia, the Middle East, South Africa and India.
“A further commonality across Spar Worldwide in 2017 was the investment of Spar on a major scale in responsible retailing. Our commitments and initiatives across the world, whilst tailored to community specific needs, are strongly focused on health, community, the environment and sourcing responsibly.”
Wasmuht said the outlook for this year and beyond is positive. “As Spar grows internationally we create a continuous cycle of reinvesting that growth in resources which in turn makes us stronger and better together.”
