Discount stores stand to gain: 40% rises - the highest on the market

Penny Market and Profi store networks recorded 40% higher sales in the first quarter of this year against the similar period of 2008, according to data reported by the two companies, which say the economic turmoil is making increasingly more customers turn towards discount stores. The discount food store network Penny Market, operated by German group Rewe, posted around 373 million RON (87 million euros) in gross sales, up 37% against the same time in 2008. “Our sales rises have to do both with our accelerated network expansion – we had 23 store openings in the mentioned period – and in the stores opened by the end of 2008,” said Marcel Thiele, general manager of Rewe Romania, operator of the Penny Market network on the Romanian market. The company had 50 operating stores at the end of 2007.