The store absorption strategy of Inditex, Accelerated over the past year and will lead to a reduction in its physical network of between 1,000 and 1,200 outlets, affected almost all its major markets. To varying degrees, but of the 20 countries where it has a greater physical presence, only in two expand the number of stores at the close of 2020 compared to the previous one.
Saudi Arabia and Romania they were the two rare grandparents. The Saudi country has been gaining weight in the group to be its tenth largest market. There are 186 stores after adding five new ones last year, being the country that recorded the highest growth.
They are, for example, 77 more than it was 10 years ago, a period in which it grew consecutively until reaching 183 at the end of 2017. Then it fell in the next two years in a unity in each, to grow again in 2020 to 186, its highest level. Of this amount 47 are Zara, 32 in Bershka, 19 in Pull & Bear and 18 in Oysho, the latter including the store opened in Dammam last year. There Inditex has the local group Alhokair as a franchisee.
The other case was Romania, where the Inditex network won three stores to place the total at 139, a new record. There the growth has been constant in the last 10 years except in 2014, when it maintained the number of establishments of the previous year.
In this period Inditex has almost tripled its presence on Romanian soil, and has made this market the twelfth largest by number of stores. In 2020 it advanced to Japan, where the balance was 12 net closures. There Inditex follows a strategy similar to the one it has undertaken in China in recent months, closing stores in its younger formats, such as Stradivarius or Pull & Bear, to offer them online only.
Outside of Saudi Arabia and Romania, three other countries were not affected by their physical network of stores: the US, where Inditex maintains 99; Israel, with 79, and Ukraine, with 72.
Already on the side of the closures, the one who took the palm was China. This closure of all Bershka, Pull & Bear and Stradivarius stores that began in January raised net closures to a total of 221, down to 388. So much so that it has not only been surpassed by Russia, which is already happen at the close of the third quarter, but also for Mexico, being relegated to fourth place. Something that not long ago seemed unthinkable. Just three years ago Inditex reached the peak of 659 establishments in this market, in which it had a dazzling growth since 2010.
The stores that added China and Spain accounted for 41% of the total in this year.
After 10 years this proportion is now 26.3%. in the domestic market the number of net closures in the last year was 169, remaining in 1411 stores, the lowest level since 2004.
Although the balance between openings and closings was negative, and for the first time also the evolution of the commercial surface, Inditex continued to open stores in cities such as Paris, Moscow, Mexico City, Amsterdam, and also Spanish, as a new Uterqüe in Málaga and the enlarged and refurbished Zara on Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona.