Romanians spend over 270m euros on confectionery

The value of sales on the confectionery market amounted to around 924.5 million RON (around 277 million euros) last year, up 27.4% against the previous year, after chocolate tablets preserved their lead in the Romanian consumers’ preferences, with sales worth over 392 million RON, up 10% on 2006, according to market research company Nielsen. Second in the ranking are individual chocolates, with sales worth 132.6 million RON, 47.8% above the previous year, according to Nielsen data. Milk chocolate was leader of the tablet segment, with an 83.4% share in terms of volume, however down 0.5% on the preceding year. In terms of individual chocolates, the biggest market share, 18.6%, was accounted for by mixed chocolates, up 2.8% on 2006. In terms of value, sales of chocolate-coated wafers exceeded those of chocolate figurines, chocolates and boiled sweets. The overall market of chocolate figurines amounted to 57.2 million RON last year, up 47.5%. However, Romanians spent less on chocolates, around 41.6 million RON, a 3.2% decline on 2006. Broken down into categories of products, chocolates accounted for the highest sales in department stores, in terms of volume, while chocolate spread was the highest seller on the hypermarket and supermarket segments.