Carrefour puts pharmacy on the street and foresees acquisitions
Valor Econômico 09/01/10
The French Carrefour, the second largest group of Brazilian supermarkets and owner of 145 drugstores in the country, all installed within its chain of stores, now plans to take the pharmacy business to the streets. The Carrefour Drugstores, operation started five years ago, enters the second phase of expansion, which can rely on acquisitions. "We have already reached the limit of pharmacies installed in supermarkets and we are ready to carry the flag to the streets", says the director of Carrefour Brazil drugstores, Oscar Basto Teixeira Júnior. The executive did not reveal how many stores they want to reach on average term, but it works with the options of organic growth and through acquisitions. Brazil was the first country to have a Carrefour drugstore five years ago, an idea reproduced by the multinational in Argentina and Colombia. In the country, according to Basto Júnior, the regions with better performance are Goiás and Nordeste, which together account for only 15 units.Extremely fragmented, the drugstore sector has been undergoing a consolidation - in the past two months, Brazil Pharma, from BTG Pactual, bought the Farmácia dos Pobres and joined Rosário Distrital, and the Drogaria São Paulo acquired Drogão, taking the lead among the networks in the country. The drug retail sales R$ 32 billion (US$ 18,3 billion) a year, but the units in super and hypermarkets account for only 3% of that total, according to the Brazilian Association of Pharmacy Networks and drugstores (Abrafarma).
The dispute must now increase with the arrival of Carrefour drugstore to the streets. In the media, Carrefour and Pão de Açúcar already maintain dispute over the generics segment which accounts for 23% of sales of medicines in the country. Expected to close yesterday, the campaign of Carrefour that promises up to 75% discount in the drugstores of São Paulo has been extended until March 15. In the pharmacies of the French multinational, the value can be paid in up to ten installments with no interest in the network card. The campaign of Pão de Açúcar assures up to 90% discount to São Paulo people who buy drugs with the store card during this month.
"We got a good negotiation with suppliers", says Basto Júnior about the large discount. The Carrefour drugstore buys the medicines from distributors. "But we are studying to start buying direct from the industry", said the executive. According to a source from the sector, the drugstores which buy from distributors are more at risk of running out of certain products, compared with the drugstores which deal with the pharmaceutical industry. "The customer who comes in with a recipe with three drugs, goes away if only find one or two", says the source. "Other problem is the location of the store, hidden within the hyper, and the unwillingness of the consumer, who has already lost much time doing his/her shopping in the super or hyper and does not want to stop again at the pharmacy", he says.
Today, Pão de Açúcar, the largest group of national retail, has 149 drugstores and should open another 25 this year. Only one store, in the state capital, in front of the company headquarters, is on the street. There are no plans to expand in that direction. The American Walmart, the third largest supermarket group in the country, has a much larger network of pharmacies, 277 units, and should reach 350 by the end of 2010. All within their stores.