The Spanish companies among the world's top 50 retailers

Spain's Mercadona, El Corte Inglés, and the myriad Inditex clothes shops, among them Zara, are among the world's top-50 shops and distribution chains according to the 2012 Global Powers of Retail survey, carried out by consultants Deloitte in conjunction with Stores magazine.

Supermarket chain Mercadona, which has enjoyed a meteoric rise in Spain over the past decade, increased its lead over El Corte Inglés, although both fell in the annual ranking, to 42nd and 47th place respectively.

The Valencia-based company, set up in 1977 and presided over by Juan Roig, saw its net turnover for 2010 - the year that the ranking is based on - grow by 5.8 percent to 15.2 billion euros.

Overall, El Corte Inglés, the country's best-known department store, still has greater total turnover than Mercadona of 16.4 billion euros. But Deloitte's ranking is based only on retail sales, and does not include wholesale, direct sale or public supply contracts.

For the first time, in 2010, Mercadona surpassed El Corte Inglés in profits, reporting 398 million euros compared to the long-established department store's 319 million euros.

But neither can come close to Inditex's 1.7-billion-euro profit.

Of the three companies in the top-50, the only one to have improved its standing in the latest study is Inditex, moving up one place to 49th. The group set up by Galician Amancio Ortega and now presided over by Pablo Isla, is also among the 50 companies that have experienced the most growth over the five years prior to the preparation of the report, despite not having made any major purchases.

The giant fashion retailer's business model and its geographic diversification have allowed it to continue growing throughout the current economic crisis.

Inditex, whose high-street brands include Zara, Zara Home, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Stradivarius, is also among the companies present in the greatest number of countries: 78, according to the company's latest information, and is only just behind LVMH, in 84 countries, and PPR, in 91, with computer giant Dell present in a total of 180 countries.

Spanish supermarket chain Eroski is ranked 98th out of the total of 250 companies in Deloitte's annual survey. A sharp fall in sales and the depreciation of the euro against the dollar (the currency that the survey is carried out in) saw the company slip 17 places from the previous year.

Deloitte and Stores' ranking does not include what is now the fourth Spanish retail outlet, ahead of Eroski: Dia. The low-cost supermarket chain split from Carrefour last year. Its earnings for 2010, 9.7 billion euros, would actually put the company in 70th place.

The world's leading retail outlet remains US outfit Wal-Mart, followed in distant second and third places by France's Carrefour and Britain's Tesco respectively.

Drugstore chain Walgreen is the only change among the top-10 retail outlets, which between them make up 29.4 percent of the total sales of the 250 companies on the list.

In all, the companies in the ranking increased their sales by an average 5.4 percent on the previous year, up from 1.2 percent in the preceding survey. Specialists in areas such as fashion, electronics, and furniture outperformed general goods stores.

In the department store section of the survey, the well-known giants from the United States (Sears, Macy's, Kohl's and JC Penney) filled the top four positions. Behind the US quartet came El Corte Inglés, the European leader in this retail category.

For the first time, Apple is among the top-100 leading retail outlets after a spectacular leap of 38 places in one year. The company, responsible for the iPad, iPod, and iPhone products, along with computers and other electronic goods, has opted for a vertical integration strategy, which has seen it become its own distributor both through the internet and retail outlets.

What's more, Apple is likely to continue climbing in the ranking, due to its high sales in 2011 and deals with Target and Best Buy to open mini-shops within their stores, as it currently has with, for example, El Corte Inglés.

Deloitte's survey highlights continuing globalization as the major trend in retailing, which will see companies need to open stores in new markets. It also points to multi-channel retailing through catalogues, internet, social networks and cellphone technology.

Stores will remain at the core of the big retailers' businesses, but their role is set to be a fast-changing one: "The transition will oblige retail outlets to innovate and to rethink their operating models in ways that they would not have imagined even five years ago," says the survey.