In the meantime, the chain has opened its eighth store

The Finnish corporation SOK Retail International Oy, which is developing the Prisma chain of stores in Russia, opened its eighth store in St. Petersburg at the end of last week and plans to launch another outlet by the end of 2011. A new supermarket opened on Ligovsky Prospekt, in the Ligov shopping and entertainment complex, owned by the Adamant holding. The total investment amounted to about €5 million. Analysts believe that against the background of high competition in the retail market in the city, the company needs to continue to develop its network of stores in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.

According to SOK Retail International Oy (part of the Finnish company S-Group, which manages three Sokos hotels in St. Petersburg and is developing a chain of six supermarkets and two Prisma hypermarkets in St. Petersburg), at the end of last week the company opened its eighth store in St. Petersburg. Supermarket with an area of 2.3 thousand square meters. m is located on Ligovsky Prospekt in the Ligov shopping and entertainment center, which belongs to the Adamant holding. The total area of the shopping complex is 35.7 thousand square meters. m. The total investment is about €5 million.

According to the president of SOK Retail International Oy, Vesa Punnonen, the daily traffic flow along Ligovsky Prospekt reaches more than 200 thousand cars, the number of pedestrians is also large, and there is direct access from the metro to the shopping complex and the Prisma supermarket. “So I am deeply convinced of the success of this outlet,” says Mr. Punnonen.

The company plans to open the next Prisma store in November-December 2011; by the end of 2012, four to six more supermarkets and hypermarkets will be opened in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region; in the long term, the network will include 20-30 stores.

According to KERPPiT, in 2010, retail trade turnover in St. Petersburg increased by 13.1% compared to 2009 and amounted to approximately 695 billion rubles.

According to Vasily Koposov, an analyst at the investment company Energocapital, the market for hypermarkets and supermarkets in St. Petersburg is quite strictly divided, and in order to gain a foothold on it, you need to take advantage of novelty. “Prisma has a novelty in Finnish goods. In addition, it seems to me that opening their own stores in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, such as Kolpino, is an appropriate strategy, there is a large population there, but the density of stores is lower,” says Mr. Koposov.

As Vesa Punnonen adds, Prisma was able to find its niche in the highly competitive market of St. Petersburg. “Compared to last year, our sales have increased by 70 percent,” said Mr. Punnonen. The company's sales in Russia in 2010 amounted to just over 3.5 billion rubles.

In addition, in June 2011 it became known that SOK Retail International Oy will invest €100 million in projects of four shopping and entertainment centers owned by the Adamant holding, which will be built in the city over several years. Analysts call co-investment the right move, believing it could speed up the pace of construction. “Today we are already the owners of the retail space of the Prisma Zvezdnaya supermarket and in the future we also plan to buy some space,” says Vesa Punnonen.

Yulia Chayun

Prisma has regional plans