Ranking of major German textile retailers

Germany''s textile retail trade became more dominated by a certain number of large firms in 2002. The 19th TW ranking of major textile
retailers showed that around 58 per cent of the declining market is
held by fewer than 80 companies. The ranking is published by TextilWirtschaft, the German trade journal for the textile and fashion industries.

Textile and apparel sales inched down from  59.76bn to  58.01bn in
2002. The top 78 companies listed in the current ranking combined
generated around  34bn in sales, matching last year''s levels.

The top 20 recorded total sales of  26.21bn in 2002 compared with
26bn the year before. The first place was taken by catalogue and retail company KarstadtQuelle AG with a turnover of 6.48bn, the second by catalogue company Otto Group reaching a turnover of  3.85bn, while apparel retailer C&A posted  2.81bn and reached third place.

Companies such as S.Oliver, Esprit and Zara gained the most ground. Textile discounters such as Kik and Takko and firms outside the textile sector such as food and non-food discounters Aldi, Lidl and Tchibo experienced considerable growth.