Supermarket leverages record of commerce in 2007
Valor Econômico - 02/19/2008
The sector of hypermarkets, supermarkets, food products, beverages and tobacco contributed with 3.2 % in the gain of 9.6% resulting from the volume of retail sales last year. The second major influence was due to the group of household-electric devices and furniture, which contributed with 2.3 % in the total of the commerce in 2007. According to Reinaldo Pereira, technician of the services and commerce's coordination of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the hyper and supermarkets benefited from the increase of the salary mass and from the expansion of credit which took place along the year, including the increase in the use of the retail companies' credit cards. Both groups contributed for the retail commerce to end the year with the best result of the historical series, started in 2001. The level reached last year was more significant than the 9.3% of increase registered in 2004. The result accrued throughout the year was influenced by the performance of the first semester, when the retail segment went 9.8% up, against the 9.5% in the last six months of the year. Pereira also remembers that the result of the year might have been better wasn't it for the December sales that were not better than November's. In the two last months of the year, the volume of sales did not change. For Emerson Kapaz, strategy consultant of the Instituto para o Desenvolvimento do Varejo-IDV (Institute for the Development of the Retail segment), the retail growth in 2007 was resulted from three facts: the increase of the salary mass and income, the increase of credit, and the advance of the consumer's confidence. As it may last, Kapaz foresees good results for the retail segment again this year. The consultant works with a projection of an increase between 6.5% and 7% in the volume of sales in 2008.