Supermarket Strategic Alert: Annual Industry Reviews

Statistics continue to tell the same story: Globally and nationally, Wal-Mart gets bigger. Although its grocery sales are not reported separately, tallies show Wal- Mart Supercenters with the largest share in the US. Globally, the company's sales are 3.5 times that of its next largest competitor, Carrefour.

Within the US, the ‘big three'—Kroger, Albertson's and Safeway, in that order— continue to dominate. To make earnings look better, they are shedding marginal units. To be perfectly clear, however, the ‘big four' (including Wal- Mart) control close to 45% of the grocery sales in the US. Although no single company dominates across all markets, and some regional chains have market share in excess of the big guns in their market areas, the concept of a national supermarket chain no longer seems impossible.