German domination: Lidl overtakes Kaufland as biggest retailer in Romania

German discount supermarket chain Lidl took over discount hypermarket chain Kaufland as the biggest retailer in Romania by turnover in 2020. Both Lidl and Kaufland are part of the German group Schwarz.

Lidl, which entered the Romanian market ten years ago by taking over local supermarket network Plus, reached increased its business by a third in 2020 compared to an 8% increase for Kaufland. Lidl thus reached a turnover of RON 12.86 billion (EUR 2.659 bln) just above Kaufland’s RON 12.84 billion (EUR 2.653 bln), according to public data from the Finance Ministry.

However, Kaufland was the more profitable of the two, with a net profit of RON 970 mln (EUR 201 mln), up 14% year-on-year. Lidl recorded a net profit of RON 756 mln (EUR 156 mln), 54% higher than in 2019.

Both networks increased their number of employees last year as they continued to expand by opening new units. Kaufland reached 13,100 employees while Lidl had close to 8,800.