Electronics and home appliances retailers see sharp fall in Q4 of 2008

The top three retailers on the electronics and home appliances market, Altex, Flamingo and Domo, posted over 750 million euros in sales last year – almost 70% of the market, up 7% compared with the previous year. Sales of electronics and home appliances retailers went up by up to 60% in the first three quarters of last year, according to companies in the industry, but fell sharply in the last three months of the year, when volumes would tend to be higher than in the rest of the year. However, the market declined by an average 20% in the fourth quarter 2008, and by a similar percentage in the first two months of 2009. Although the freezing of the real estate market and of many commercial projects towards the end of the year put off the opening of more than 10 new stores, for all retailers considered as a whole, the sales area of each network went up by at least 5,000 square metres. The overall sales area of the three retailers went up by more than 22,000 square metres, especially in large-format stores, reaching 224,000 square metres in all. Although the sales area went up 11% in 2008, sales per square metre started to decline against 2007, with the average sale down by over 10 euros per square metre.