Once in the hands of those close to the clan of Angola’s former president José Eduardo dos Santos, the supermarket sector is undergoing a complete overhaul, and competition is in full swing.
In Luanda, the capital of Angola, the number of new supermarkets opening their doors continues to grow. Over the past two years, the mass retail sector has undergone massive expansion, marked by a proliferation of chains, the rise of previously modest players, and increased competition.
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“We have seen a growth in sales and profits, but also a considerable increase in the number of operators in the market,” confirmed Marcos Paulo Bernardes, managing director of Alimenta Angola, a brand created in 2009 from the alliance between the Brazilian group Tenda Atacado and Sanzi, an Indian group that is very active in DRC.
Opening fever
The sector was embryonic in the early 2000s, following the end of the civil war that tore Angola apart for 27 years, and emerged at the turn of the 2010s on the back of high oil prices, before coming to a halt with the mid-2014 collapse in crude oil barrel prices.
Despite some rebound linked to the recovery in the price of black gold from 2017, supermarkets in 2020 suffered another blow, unsurprisingly, from the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Since then, despite inflation caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – prices rose by 27.7% in January 2022 and by a further 12.5% in January 2023, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) not forecasting a single-digit rise until 2024 – the sector has resumed its rapid expansion, as demonstrated by the surge of new stores, particularly in Luanda.
The capital of the continent’s second-largest oil producer behind Nigeria, where more than a quarter of the country’s 30 million or so inhabitants live, is also home to 70% of the 120,000 commercial establishments in the country, according to the Ministry of Commerce quoted by the business weekly Expansão in November 2022.
Indian interests
The breakthrough of certain operators is apparent. This is particularly true of the Noble group, set up by Indian businessman Nazim Charania, which has been importing food products into Angola for more than 20 years and is also present in the DRC, Namibia, and Mozambique, among other countries.
Its AngoMart brand, run by Frenchman Hugo Moutinho, launched wholesale and semi-wholesale sales in 2014, before moving into retail sales in 2021 and investing in the construction of its network. The brand already has around 20 supermarkets, boasting a total (retail, semi-wholesale, and wholesale) of almost 70 outlets in 15 of Angola’s 18 provinces.
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The Newaco group’s Fresmart chain is enjoying a similar boost, with around 30 outlets in total. The group is controlled by Salim Kamani, an Indian investor who is also a partner of Charania and a third Indian player, Sajid Dhrolia, within the SNS Group. SNS is active in the mass retailing industry in the DRC via BNB (Biso na Biso).
Another group, Alimenta Angola, also backed by Indian interests, has confirmed its ambitions to develop.
“We’re in an expansion phase,” says Marcos Paulo Bernardes. “We have five cash and carry shops in Luanda, which generate annual sales of around $80m, and four more are due to open soon.”
