Deloitte’s latest report on 2021 ranking of global retail giants, has pegged multi-billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail Ltd. at second position among the fastest growing retailers in the world.
The Ambani-owned company has lost its top rank from the previous years as it is currently ranked 53rd in the list of Global Retailing Giants. This is a marked improvement from its previous year’s standing of 56th position, as per the Deloitte report.
The US giant Walmart Inc. continues to top the global retailer charts while Amazon.com has gradually climbed up to the second position. In contrast, Costco Wholesale Corporation of US dropped to the third place, followed by Schwarz Group of Germany.
The US retailers have dominated the global retailer market by securing seven out of the top 10 rankings while UK’s Tesco PLC has grabbed the 10th spot. Among other US retailers, the top 10 list features The Kroger Co (5th rank), Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (6th rank) and CVS Health Corporation (9th rank). Germany’s Aldi Einkauf GmbH & Co. oHG and Aldi International Services GmbH & Co. oHG complete the list at 8th position.
Reliance Retail holds the distinction of being the only Indian entry in the global list of 250 retailers. It has achieved this feat for the 4th consecutive time as one of the world’s top retailing firm as well as a fastest-growing retailer.
“Reliance Retail, last year’s Fastest 50 leader, dropped to second place. The company recorded YoY growth of 41.8 per cent, driven primarily by a 13.1 per cent increase in the number of stores in its consumer electronics, fashion and lifestyle and grocery retail chains, to 11,784 stores across 7,000+ towns and cities in India at fiscal year end (FY20),” Deloitte said.
“The company is partnering with WhatsApp to further accelerate Reliance Retail’s digital commerce business on the JioMart platform using WhatsApp and to support small businesses on WhatsApp,” the report added.
“Reliance Retail acquired the 29 stores of Shri Kannan Departmental Store at the end of FY2019, and in August 2020 announced it would acquire Future Group’s retail, wholesale and logistics units for USD 3.4 billion.”
The signing of these latest deals will reportedly double Reliance Retail’s real-estate space while also offering a further growth boost in the E-commerce sector. The company has made two more acquisitions in 2020 – Vitalic Health and its online pharmacy outlet Netmeds in August, followed by a 96% stake in online home decor company UrbanLadder in November.
The Deloitte report reflected a mixed global outlook for the year 2021-2022 saying that the world was facing both promise and peril in these uncertain times.
“On the positive side, the distribution of vaccines for COVID-19 was under way, offering the promise that, sometime later in the year, the negative impact of the virus could abate significantly. On the negative side, the virus continued to threaten economic stability, especially in those parts of the world where it was still prevalent and threatened to be a problem elsewhere if new and virulent strains of the virus were spread widely,” the report conluded.
(Source: PTI)
