Supermarkets in troubled waters, says Peter Gale

Asia, particularly Asia Pacific, is a land of diversities – countries in this region are almost continents in themselves. Just in the way each region’s population and economies are different, their retail formats and consumption patterns are also different. It’s not unusual to find a traditional mom and pop store flourishing right next to an extravagant hypermarket. At the Nielsen Retail conference organised in Mumbai recently, Peter Gale, MD, regional retailer services, Nielsen Asia Pacific, did his bit to uncover the enigma that is Asia Pacific, in the context of retail.

Gale spoke of grocery stores, revealing that APAC has more than 13 million grocery stores, of which less than 2 per cent are modern self-service outlets (as per Nielsen research). “So, the switch from traditional to modern retail may take some time!” he quipped. There are 5,400 grocery stores per million people in the region, of which 100 are modern self-service outlets (on an average). However, the share of modern trade has been rising steadily by 2 per cent every year and now accounts for nearly half of all packaged grocery sales.

Another interesting trend is the growth of convenience stores – more than 93,000 new self-service stores have been opened in APAC since 2000, out of which some 40,000 are convenience stores. Taiwan and Japan are dominant players in the convenience store format. Taiwan has the highest density of such stores in Asia, while Japan has the highest number.

Hypermarkets, too, are sprouting up all o