US retail giant Walmart has kept the crown as the biggest retailer in the world with USD469.16 billion’s retail revenue in 2012, followed by Tesco and Costco. Carrefour – formerly the world’s second-largest retailer – fell to fourth place following back-to-back years of declining sales primarily attributable to the spinoff of the Dia hard discount chain in July 2011, a new report said last week.
The report 2014 Global Powers of Retailing from Deloitte in conjunction with STORES Media finds that despite tough economic conditions, revenues for the world’s 250 largest retailers reached USD4.3 trillion in the last fiscal year from June 2012 to June 2013. The average size of the top 250 retailers exceeded USD17 billion.
"The global retail industry got off to a difficult start in the last fiscal year," said David White, Deloitte Australia Partner and retail industry leader. "However, it is encouraging to see that the world’s leading retailers were able to plough on through the difficult period and continue to grow. Despite the challenging conditions, nearly 80 percent of the top 250 (199 companies) retailers posted an increase in retail revenue. Interestingly, some of the largest retailers undertook a number of sell-offs and restructures in order to maintain profitability and help to ride out the tough trading period," he added.
According to the report, Asia-Pacific retailers posted solid gains, but not at the double-digit level seen in the prior two years. Japanese retailers recovered from a devastating fiscal year 2011 but continued to trail the other countries and regions analysed.
Australian retailers Woolworths and Wesfarmers continue to maintain their position in the top 20 global retailers with Woolworths jumping two places to 15th in this year’s rankings while Wesfarmers dropped one spot to 19th, according to White.
As foreign retailers are gearing up to tap the Australian market, White suggests local retailers who have been battered by weak consumer spending and fierce internet competition to explore the growth opportunities through international expansion in to Asia.
The report also includes a list of the world’s top 50 e-retailers and found that more than three-quarters of them are part of the top 250 retailers globally.
E-commerce took a significant share of total retail revenue for the e-50 in fiscal year 2012 accounting for nearly one-third of company sales on average, the report says. "The vast majority of the e-50 in the e-retail ranking are multi-channel retailers, only eight are non-store or web-only retailers. Most e-50 retailers are based in the United States and Europe, and only five are emerging-market companies," it adds.
E-commerce activity was also analysed for the top 250 as a whole. Top 250 companies with e-commerce operations generated an average 7.7 percent of their sales online in fiscal year 2012. Online sales grew fastest for Asia-Pacific retailers and slowest for North American retailers.
To download the full report, click on the PDF attachment.