C&A tightens fashion retail battle by doubling store-opening pace

Autor: Cristina Roşca 30.03.2011

C&A apparel retailer, one of Europe's biggest players, plans to open nine stores this year in Romania and thus come to a total of 16 stores.

The Dutch retailer, which in the first two years of presence on the market opened three, respectively four stores a year, is thus doubling its expansion pace and is spurring competition on the fashion segment, shortly after H&M's arrival on the market.

Sweden's H&M wants to open eight stores this year, while Spain's Inditex, the biggest player on the market, with turnover worth around 100m euros in 2010, according to ZF estimates, will open more than 14 stores.

Romanian fashion retail is valued at 1.9bn euros in 2010 by Euromonitor Internaţional market research company, namely 7.5 euros per month per capita, according to ZF calculations. However, Euromonitor estimates Romanians will spend increasingly more on apparel in the near future, so that the market will hit 2.9bn euros in 2015 and 4.2bn euros in 2020, meaning a Romanian will come to spend around 11.5 euros monthly by 2015 and 16.7 euros by 2020, according to ZF calculations.