Mobexpert Group, the leading player on the domestic furniture market, is in talks to open two new furniture hypermarkets, one of which located in southern Bucharest and the other one in Sofia, Bulgaria.
"We will begin construction of the store in Sofia that could be opened by the end of 2004, early 2005. We will build another hypermarket in Bucharest, in the south of the city, but we are only negotiating it for the time being," said Dan Viorel Sucu, Mobexpert chairman.
He plans to consolidate the group's image as a furniture retailer, both in Romania and in the Balkans. "Mobexpert is a furniture retailer above all; production and export come second. Furthermore, we do no want to sell furniture just anyway, we want to create and market a concept - the furniture hypermarket," Sucu added.
Following the massive investments last year, 2004 will bring moderate growth. "2004 will be a year of consolidation and the turnover will not increase that much. We will focus on improving the delivery and post-sale services," said Dan Viorel Sucu.
Another goal for 2004 is renewing the range of furniture aimed at the Romanian market. "We will constantly keep up with the trends in the West," Sucu says. He added the group's advertising investments amounted to 700,000 euros in 2003, with 1 million euros set aside for this purpose in 2004.
Mobexpert concluded 2003 with 122 million-euro turnover, slightly up compared to the forecasts for that year. As for this year, Sucu expects turnover to reach 125 million euros.
The group in 2003 invested some 12 million euros in opening two furniture hypermarkets in Bucharest, the first of which located near Carrefour Chiajna and totalling 10,000 sqm and the second located near the Cora hypermarket in Pantelimon and taking up 12,000 sqm.
The opening of the two stores in Bucharest made Mobexpert's sales in the Capital double in December 2003 from December 2002. As in the case of new investments, sales per square metre were lower, because the doubling of sales occurred against the tripling of the space. Mobexpert is now operating three large stores in Bucharest that total 37,000 sqm. Sucu says there will be 9 Mobexpert furniture hypermarkets in Romania by 2010, five of which located in Bucharest and four in the other big cities across the country (Constanta, Cluj, Brasov and Timisoara), all of them included in large shopping complexes. Retail will remain Mobexpert's core strategy, with the company set to develop the furniture hypermarket concept in other major cities of the country.
georgiana.stavarache@zf.ro
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