Acceleration in double digits

The Russian DIY market seems to have overcome the financial crisis and is now recording strong growth. The sales figures of major retailers have again seen double-digit growth during this current year. Alexey Iovlev, CEO of Metrika, a domestic retailer, mentioned his company’s growth rate of 30 per cent at a press conference on the fringes of the Business Forum at DIY & Household Retail 2011 in Moscow. Grigory Skotnitsky, a member of the Baucenter board, put the chain’s rate of growth at 30 per cent and Obi, a German DIY retailer, is said by its commercial director Evgeny Movchan to be expanding in double digits. Pekka Salmi, country manager of Fiskars, a manufacturer of garden tools, estimates the growth rates of the market as a whole at between 15 and 25 per cent. John Herbert, general secretary of the European DIY association EDRA, called this the “most dynamic and exciting market in the world”.