Baltic, Markets and Companies, Retail

Maxima's earned sales in amount of 1.93 billion kroons in Estonia in the first six months of this year.

The chain owns 53 shops in Estonia.

Mindaugas Bagdonavicius, the Genereal Manager of Maxima Group, said that Estonia was one of the first to fall into crisis and is one of the first to get through it.

To sum up, Maxima Group sales in Baltic States and Bulgaria in the first half of this year fell by 11% to 16 billion kroons.

Renatas Vaitkevicius, the Chairman of Maxima Eesti, added that the Estonian market of primary consumer goods fell about six% in the first half year on year, but in recent months the figures have been improving.

"While the market in the first six months of the year was very weak, there was improvement in the second quarter in our results. We are especially happy that we managed to increase the number of customers by about 10% in a year and slightly increase our market share. While lower prices are attracting new customers, the value of the average purchase basket has also declined," he added.

Vaitkevicius pointed out that consumers still are very cautios regarding the purchases.

According to his prognosis, the sales are going to be better in the second half of this year.

Maxima which plans to open two – three stores this year in Estonia.

Maxima Group has 428 stores under its brands Maxima X, Maxima XX, Maxima XXX and Ermitazas. Of them, 216 are situated in Lithuania, 129 – in Latvia, 53 – in Estonia and 30 – in Bulgaria. The group has over 25,000 employees.