Auchan eyes EUR 100 mln sales for its Drumul Taberei unit

Newsroom 10/12/2014 | 15:46

Auchan’s new hypermarket unit in Drumul Taberei, opened on Wednesday, could reach annual sales of over EUR 100 million in the near future, according to Auchan Romania director, Frederic Bellon, quoted by Mediafax.

In spite of optimistic figure, the director believes it will still not surpass performance for the Titan hypermarket.

“The potential is there. In a few years time it will reach over EUR 100 million sales, less than Titan”, according to the general director.

The unit covers a surface of 10,500 square meters in an Immochan developed commercial center and has 450 employees. It represents Auchan’s 8 store in Bucharest and the 32nd nation wide, the result of a EUR 60 million investment.

Auchan has several direct competitors in the vicinity, among which Kaufland, Billa, Cora Lujerului, Lidl and another Auchan unit in Afi Cotroceni.

“We’re not supposed to fight with AFI, but rather to complement each other. It is a neighborhood with 250,000 inhabitants and we are in the centre of it. We believe that 60-70 percent of future clients will be walk-ins”, according to Tatian Diaconu, general director Immochan.

The project for the commercial center was started in 2011 with a deadline for April 2015.

“Given the rate of advancement for construction we realized that we can inaugurate in December. True, the commercial gallery has lease contracts signed for april 2015 and not all retailers could open their units at the same time with us”, Diaconu added.

The commercial gallery has 60 tenants as of now, with the ground floor being 46 percent occupied and the first floor is at 80 percent. Diaconu mentioned the commercial centre is at 95 percent occupancy rate and in the first year Immochan will get EUR 3 million from rent.