VILNIUS-TALLINN - VP Market, the Baltics' largest retail chain, announced that it would open its second store in Estonia - in Tartu - on May 8, as part of its plans to open three new stores in the country over the next two months.
A leading market research company meanwhile confirmed the rapid concentration in the retail industry.
"In Estonia, we are planning to open at least two T-Market stores in May and one in June," Gintaras Marcinkevicius, head of VP Market's Estonian and Latvian operations, said. "We see many prospects in Estonia, and we are planning to have 15 T-Market stores in that country by the end of this year. Everything is going as planned."
VP Market, which dominates in Lithuania and is increasing market share in Latvia, currently has only one store in Estonia, located in Parnu, but managers expect to expand the chain to 40 stores over the next three years.
Marcinkevicius also said that they were planning to open a new store in Latvia in May.
VP Market currently owns 81 stores in Latvia.
Spokesman Ivars Andins said that after Tartu the next step would be to take the capital Tallinn, with expansion to other cities to follow.
Andins said that the company plans to gain a foothold on the Estonian market with its smaller T-Market stores that specialize on less expensive goods.
VP Market currently runs a chain of 268 stores in the three Baltic countries, of which 186 stores are in Lithuania. The group reported total sales of 1.041 billion euros for 2003, a 17.9 percent rise over the previous year.
Meanwhile, Germany's mega-retailer Lidl is likely to open its first four grocery stores in Lithuania this autumn, the business daily Verslo Zinios reported April 19.
The paper cited Hans Nell, CEO of Inter-Trakas, the distributor of shelf systems, carts and plastic packaging, as saying that Lidl would launch its operations in Lithuania in the autumn of this year.
Inter-Trakas expects to supply shelves to Lidl's Baltic stores.
According to Verslo Zinios, Lidl is negotiating to buy or lease plots of land in the country. Experts forecast that the German retailer would open its first stores in smaller towns, where competition is not as intense.
Lidl runs a chain of around 4,000 stores in Germany, Ireland, Finland and other countries, with annual sales of 17 billion euros.
Also this week ACNielsen, a market research company, reported that the number of retail outlets in Lithuania had continued to decline though total retail area was rapidly increasing, Verslo Zinios reported.
According to the report, there were over 15,500 retail outlets in Lithuania selling consumer goods at the start of this year, including large shopping centers, grocery stores, kiosks, drugstores, restaurants, cafes, filling stations and others.
The number of such outlets was around 12,000 in Latvia and over 6,000 in Estonia.
Arturas Urbonavicius, head of ACNielsen's Baltic operations, said a clear trend toward a decline in the number of retail outlets has been observed. The total number of outlets has fallen 8 percent this year compared with early 2003, while the total retail area grew by almost 12 percent to over 900,000 square meters.
