Strong growth for German DIY stores in 2011

Last year saw strong growth in terms of retail area and sales for the 20 biggest DIY companies and their stores both at home and abroad. Altogether these companies increased their combined sales area in 2011 by 3.0 per cent (550 000 m²) after taking into account openings and closures.Since their sales grew by € 1.1 bn (= 3.9 per cent) to more than € 29.4 bn (2010: € 28.3 bn) over the same period, the 20 biggest DIY retailers and their stores at home and abroad achieved a like-for-like sales increase of 0.9 per cent in 2011. These are some of the figures announced on Monday by trade publishers Dähne Verlag of Ettlingen at their annual DIY retail statistics press conference within the framework of this year’s International Hardware Fair in Cologne. The German sales of these 20 biggest companies grew by around 3.2 per cent in 2011 (€ 21.02 mio : € 20.37 mio 2010) and 1.6 per cent like-for-like. The purely domestic space productivity of the “Top 20” rose from € 1.418 to € 1.441 (+ € 23).Last year the total retail area of all the DIY stores in Germany combined came to 18.983 mio m². If you multiply this total by the average space productivity of € 1.539 achieved by the “Top 30” the result is a figure of € 29.2 bn for the combined sales of all German DIY and home improvement stores together. When the international sales figure of around € 8.6 bn achieved abroad by German DIY retailers is added on, the result for all the domestic and foreign stores of German DIY companies taken together comes to sales of € 37.8 bn (2010: € 36.68 bn) in 2011; they succeeded in expanding by 3.1 per cent.You can find a more detailed version of this report under the Trade Topics section in DIYglobal Plus (see below: Further articles on this subject).