Local company Bingo has become the leading grocery retailer in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a 17% market share at the end of 2016.
As a result, Konzum (owned by Croatian grocery-to-retail consortium Agrokor) slipped into second place with 16%, according to a report by Euromonitor, European Supermarket Magazine reports.
Konzum was the player that originally drove consolidation in the local market, but lost steam at the end of the year, as it was still adjusting operations following its acquisition of Mercator in 2014.
Bingo’s performance towards the end of 2016 enabled it to take the lead in market share, as it invests in new greenfield projects focusing on the shopping mall format.
Bingo ended 2016 with 183 stores of different formats, after opening a new shopping mall in Vogosca at the end of December that includes a hypermarket with 4,500 square metres of retail space.
The Euromonitor report revealed that Bosnian consumers increased their demand for grocery and non-grocery items in the second half of 2016 as a result of the improved economic climate.
Affordable financing from international creditors such as the World Bank and EBRD fuelled the growth of domestically-owned retailers.
Euromonitor predicted that the most important factor driving growth in 2017 will be the growing disposable incomes of consumers in reaction to the increasing pace of economic growth.
