Australian major supermarket dominance confirmed by new Deloitte report

Posted by AFN Staff Writers on 22nd January 2013

The two major Australian supermarket groups, Woolworths and Coles, have been listed as the 17^th and 18^th largest retailers respectively by global consulting group Deloitte in its recent “Global Powers of Retailing” report.

The report analysed 250 retailers finding that Wesfarmers-owned Coles and Woolworths were in the top 20 retailers in the world ranked by revenue earned in 2011. During 2011, Woolworths raised $54,614 million US in retail revenue. Woolworths grew 5 per cent during the period of 2006-2011.

Wesfarmers was placed one position below Woolworths, with retail revenue of $52,208 million US during 2011. Wesfarmers experienced a growth of 59.2 per cent during 2006-2011, meaning that it is now the fastest-growing retailer in the world.

United States-based CostCo and Germany-based ALDI, which are both also present in Australia, ranked number 6 and number 8 respectively in terms of revenue. Meanwhile, United-States-based Wal-Mart was named the largest retailer in the world.

Deloitte’s report highlighted further expansion plans from international retailers, which are set to provide competition for Dominant retailers Coles and Woolworths. Australian expansion plans include IKEA which plans to double its Australian stores, and Costco which has committed $140 Million to additional stores.

“Undoubtedly, the influx of global retailers to the Australian market has and will continue to increase competition. However, we shouldn’t forget that Australian retailers still have a number of advantages including a greater knowledge of the local market, customers and seasons; an established customer base; and prime store locations,” the report said.

“For Australian retailers to be successful it’s vital that their response to global competition is positive and developed around a well thought out long term strategy,” the report continued.

The Deloitte report was recently mentioned by the Australian Food and Grocery Council which described the fall in product choice on offer to Australian supermarket shoppers.