Kesko grocery to an impressive 8,1 % profit margin

The grocery division of K-Group has reported a stunning 8,1 % profit margin (7,4 % last year) on the back of a decent growth 3,2 %. There are not many (if any) grocery retailers in the world that can reported similar levels of profits.

The growth of the overall K-Group grocery business was led by the Horeca wholesale arm Kespro, which reported a 9,3 % growth. Also the bigger stores of K-Citymarket and K-Supermarket grew faster than the overall K-Group.

The online grocery business within Kesko grew by 17,3 %. The share of online stands currently at 2,4 % of the overall grocery business (down from the pandemic highs of above 4 %).

Despite the solid growth, K-Group seems to be losing to the overall market growth. In Q3 the grocery market in Finland grew by 3,3 %.

For the year to date (1-9/2021) the grocery market has grown by 3,7 %. K-Group grew by 3,2 %, which probably represents a small decline in the market share. S-Group recently reported that it grew by 3,8 % during the nine months of 2021. Thus, one could imagine that K-Group has lost some market share to S-Group.