Three years after the appointment of Denis Olivennes to head Fnac, the "trend-shaker" is continuing its offensive policy beyond national boundaries. In 2006, its foreign-earned revenue accounted for a quarter of the brand's total earnings, up to 11% compared to 2005. Buoyed by this success, the PPR group retailer has just opened four new stores, three of them in Europe: two in Murcia and Bilbao, bringing to 14 the number of Spanish stores, and one on the Island of Madeira, bringing to 10 the number of Portuguese stores. In the opinion of Jan Löning, international director, these two countries achieve profitability almost twice as high as the group average.

 

The latest store opening was on the American continent, at Sao Paulo, in the luxurious Morumbi Shopping mall. “Brazil affords wide-open development prospects,” is Jan Löning’s view. “We are continuing to invest there, because we expect growth rates there to be still higher than in Europe”. Major cities such as Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte remain to be conquered. Meanwhile, one of Fnac’s strong points in Brazil is the success of its… eighth store there, a virtual one this time. This draws the following comment from Pierre Courty, director of the Brazilian subsidiary: “Fnac.com.br will very likely be our leading store in 2007 or 2008. In less than five years, it could generate half the sales”.

Internationalisation is the retailer’s major development project. Within five years, Fnac has succeeded in doubling the number of its stores outside France. With already 117 directly-managed stores – 70 in France and 47 located abroad – Fnac has definite plans to open ten new stores abroad in 2007. Its declared aim is to raise the international contribution to group revenue to one third in 2010, compared with 22.4% in 2004.