Amazon already third largest retailer in the world

In just three years, Amazon has moved up from tenth to third place in the annual ranking of the world’s largest retailers. The e-commerce giant has almost doubled its turnover and has passed famous chains such as Lidl, Carrefour and Aldi.

Supermarkets take the lead

Supermarkets continue to dominate retail: a whopping 65.5 % of all retail sales came from FMCG players in 2018. More than half (54 % or 136 companies) of Deloitte’s annual list of the top 250 of the world’s largest retailers are active in food distribution. The first Benelux player on the list is Ahold Delhaize, with 74 billion in sales, in twelfth place worldwide.

Food retailers lead the top ten: according to Deloitte, Wal-Mart remains number one on the world stage, an honour it owes in part to its innovations in the field of e-commerce. Schwarz Group (Lidl) ranks fourth, one place higher than a year ago, and Aldi and Tesco are present as well among the top ten retailers.

It is therefore only logical that Amazon is focusing more and more on food retail, and is rapidly rising in the rankings. Jeff Bezos’ company entered the top ten in 2017, at the time at number ten, but this year it is already in the top three today. The progress is made at the expense of Kroger, who tumbles down to fifth place.

Top fairly stable

Nevertheless, the ranking remains generally rather stable. Deloitte observes that the big ones are getting bigger – the bar to enter the top 250 was 200 million euros higher this year – but the composition of the top layer remains the same: there are no new players in the top ten and the total retail growth over the past five years has also remained fairly limited.

2020 does not promise much (positive) movement: the consultants assume just a moderate growth, due to lower consumer spending and low inflation in most countries. The continuing political and economic uncertainty is not helping either, nor is the coronavirus outbreak in China.

Although the top ten remain historically dominated by American players (with the Germans Aldi and Lidl and the British Tesco as exceptions), Europe is most strongly represented in the top 250 with 88 places on the list and 34.4% of total turnover. Deloitte explains this by the strong international focus of European retailers: they are also active in the largest number of countries. 

The top ten

Benelux retailers in the top 250