Deloitte in conjunction with STORES Magazine, is pleased to present the 11th annual Global powers of retailing. This report identifies the 250 largest retailers around the world based on publicly available data for the companies’ fiscal year 2006 (encompasses fiscal years ended through June 2007). The report also provides an outlook for the global economy; an analysis of market capitalisation in the industry; and a discussion of 10 major trends affecting retailers.

Highlights from this year's report:

• Woolworths is the first Australian company to break into the top 25 global retailers list. Coles Group, remained relatively steady at 31st place
• both Australian retail giants remained in third and fourth places respectively in the Asia-Pacific top ten
• Australian companies in the top 250 have, on average, the highest market capitalisation to assets ratio (also known as the Q ratio).  In this category, Woolworths has risen from 13th place to 9th place and Coles Group leaped from 41st place to 20th place
• Wesfamers jumped an impressive twenty positions to 176th place with its compound annual sales rate for the past five years at 10 per cent
• total global retail sales for the top 250 rose to US$3.25 trillion, up eight per cent
• with combined sales of US$978.5 billion, the world’s 10 largest retailers accounted for 30.1 per cent of top 250 sales.  This group comprises six US and four European companies
• Wal-Mart Stores remained the world’s largest retailer and increased its lead over second placed Carrefour Group (France).  They are followed by The Home Depot (US), Tesco (UK) and Metro (Germany) to make the top five
• retailers from China and Russia entered the top 250 for the first time
• on average, French companies had retail operations in 15.1 countries, while German retailers did business in an average of 13.7 countries. 

Attachment
2008 Global powers of retailing (PDF, 650KB)
Deloitte Global report