ROMANIA: Modern retail reaches 62% market share in value in Q1 2017 – GfK | Progresiv
In the first quarter of 2017, modern retail reached a market share of 62%, gaining about 2 percentage points at the expense of traditional trade, according to the latest GfK Consumer Panel Services survey. Regarding the evolution on formats, supermarkets and modern convenience stores have the largest increase in market share, with the first two gaining with larger carts, while modern proximity stores recruit more shoppers. Hypermarkets are affected by the drop in traffic and lost almost one point in value. 
Private brands reached almost the same market share as in the first quarter of the previous year (~ 15%). Promotion sales fell by 0.7 percentage points in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same period of last year.
Consumer goods market also rose by 1.7% between January and March 2017 compared to the same period last year. Growth pace seems to slow down with the last quarter of 2016. Inflation is set (+ 1.5% for food), while the population continues to prefer more expensive products (uptrade). However, volumes declined for the first time in 2015 by 2.5%.
Among the large categories of consumer goods, fresh food remains constant in value. Similarly, personal care products. Those registering increases are packaged food (+ 3%), followed by beverages with 2%. Champions are home care products, which grew by 7% in value, a sign that Romanians pay more attention to home comfort.
Specialties of cheese, milk desserts, cereal bars, dried fruits, cider, confectionery and frozen pizzas have continued to grow and gain more and more households in Romania. The “pamper” categories, such as ice cream, sweet and savory biscuits, snacks and pralines, have also increased, mainly through increased consumption.
At the same time, basic foods such as flour, sugar, rice, cooking oil or margarine continued to decline.
The study is based on household consumption monitoring for all categories of consumer products through GfK Romania Consumers Panel survey, on a sample of 3,000 households, representative at national level.
If we were to look at the premises that influenced households in Romania and home consumption, then certainly consumer confidence plays a very important role. The GfK Consumer Confidence Barometer shows that Romanians’ confidence in the future reaches the highest levels in the first quarter of this year from the beginning of the crisis.
In addition, last year's economic measures continued in the first quarter of 2017: pensions increased by 5% and income tax was abolished for pensions of less than 2,000 lei, the minimum income increased by 200 lei and the VAT decreased from 20% to 19%.
