| Who is the biggest retailer of them all and who are top ten retailers of the word?
Well, there are not many surprises. Wal-Mart occupies a comfortable top position.
Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Home Depot, Metro and Tesco continue to occupy top five positions of the retailing world.
Among the next five, while Target has moved one position up to the 7th, Sears Holdings (after merger with K-Mart) has moved up from 33rd to the 9th position. Schwarz, has also moved up a notch to the 10th position.
Here is the list of top retail rankings, compiled by the well-known international consultancy firm, Deloitte, Touche, Tohmastu (Deloitte), for fiscal 2005:
- Wal-Mart (US)
- Carrefour ( France )
- Home Depot (US)
- Metro AG (Ger)
- Tesco ( UK )
- Kroger (US)
- Target (US)
- Costco (US)
- Sears Holdings (US)
- Schwarz (Ger)
Six out of the ten are from the US , while rest of the four are from Europe (two from Germany and one each from France and the UK ).
The top 10, between them, sold merchandise and services worth US $ 885 billion, almost a third ( 29.40%) of the top 250's turnover of US$ 3.01 trillion.
Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, at $312 billion, achieved more than one tenth of all the top 250 retailers' turnover put together. It was also bigger than combined turnover of the next four biggest; Carrefour, Home Depot, Metro AG and Tesco.
In fact, turnover of Wal-Mart was more than the combined turnover of the bottom 97 in the list of top 250 retailers.
The top 250, according to the report, at US$ 3.01 trillion recorded an annual growth in turnover of 6 per cent (US$ 2.84 trillion), over the previous year.
Next year there could be a new script. Mukesh Ambani, the 14th Forbes' richest person of the world, has reportedly created a war chest of around Rs.1 lakh crore ($22 billion) to buy a global retail chain of the size of Wal-Mart, Tesco or Carrefour. The amount for global acquisitions, when needed, could even be doubled by raising equivalent debt by leveraging investments with the other investors.
Ambani is said to be looking at acquiring a retail chain with global presence. His Reliance Retail is believed to be scouting for global opportunities, to market fruits, vegetables and other farm products produced in the country as he expects these products to fetch higher returns from foreign markets than from the domestic market. Reliance has entered into massive contract farming. It is also strengthening its supply chain, which includes creation of a huge cold storage network and streamlining of transportation.
Besides, the group also owns a fleet of cargo aircrafts that can ensure overnight supply of its produce in any part of the world . The group has its own fleet of cargo aircraft, which could ensure supplies to any part of the globe overnight.
Acquisition of a global retail chain could bring Reliance in the top 10 next year. Reliance in the meanwhile has denied media speculation on the subject.
According to the latest reports, Ambani is in talks with Halley family to buy its 20 percent in Carrefour, the second largest retail company with an annual sale of € 78 billion and market value of about €40 billion. The deal could be worth over € 8 billion and catapult him to the big league of retailers and help him gain access to the complex procurement and IT systems of Carrefour to manage its supplies efficiently. |
