Large-scale retail trade, the health of the sector does not disappoint

With a +4.3% increase in sales, the Italian large-scale retail trade will have a good 2025, a year with practically zero inflation as measured by ISTAT, while in 2024 revenue growth was 2.3%. In the same year, the total turnover of the largest food retail groups had reached 109.8 billion euro net of VAT. Between 2019 and 2024, value sales increased by 30.9 % at an average annual rate of 5.5 %. Revenues from promotional activities are on the rise with +4.1% per year between 2019 and 2024, accounting for 6.5% of retailers' sales. These are the key figures of the latest edition on the Italian and international large-scale retail trade carried out by Mediobanca's Research Area by analysing the financial statements of 118 Italian brands and 30 international players between 2019 and 2024.

The sector is labour intensive and personnel costs for Italian brands are, on average, 12.5% of sales, transport and logistics 3.1% and energy 1.9%. In this scenario, the Ebit margin is at 2.7% with an average over the last 6 years of 2.5% while the profitability of food & beverage producers is at 4.6%. Return on investment (Roi) is at 7.1% compared to 10.5% for non-food retail chains. Investments, including shop renovation and modernisation, increased by 4.9% in 2024 compared to 2023. In the five-year period 2020-2024, national large-scale retail operators distributed dividends of 1.3 billion and injected resources with paid-in capital increases of 691 million.

The discounters are no longer unreachable: certainly their turnover grew by 3.6% in 2023 compared to +2% for the other operators, registering an average sales growth rate between 2019 and 2024 of 8.4%. Margins stand out: the Ebit margin of the discounters stands at 5.1% in 2024, outpacing the 2.1% of the other groups, as well as the Roi, at 16.6% (5.6% the other operators). Southern companies shine in terms of sales (+8.4% annual average over 2019), Central Italia companies +6%, while North-Eastern operators are more dynamic than North-Western ones (+5.2% vs +2.9%).

Then there is a key parameter in the large-scale retail trade: profitability per square metre. Once again, the leadership of Esselunga is confirmed, which with €16,071 in sales per square metre not only surpasses all the Italian chains, but also the international ones: at some distance there are the British J Sainsbury, with €13,924 and Tesco (€12,893), the Australian Coles (€11,815) and Woolworths (€11,694), followed by the Canadian Empire (€11,203).

Market polarisation has increased in recent years: the market share of the top 7 chains rose from 52.2% in 2010 to 71% at the end of October 2025. Excluding the Coop and Conad cooperatives, the market share grew by 7.1 percentage points due to the enlargement of the membership base. VéGé is the operator that has attracted the largest number of new members. In 2024, Agora emerges, thanks to margins (the highest in the sector, with an Ebit margin of 5.2% and a Roi of 14.3%) and sales growing from 2019 at an average annual rate of 10.1%. The average Cagr of +6.6% between 2019 and 2024 was also exceeded by Selex (+7.3%) with an Ebit margin of 3.3% and Roi at 10.3%. By contrast, VéGé (Ebit margin 2.9% and Roi 9.2%) was below the segment average in 2024, with turnover growing by +5.5% on average per year from 2019. Last in terms of Ebit margin, Crai and Despar (0.9% and 1.2% respectively); the latter is also at the bottom for Roi (4.3%).