Financial performance and market growth of the companies in Hungary and Romania: A study of the food retail companies

Abstract

Currently, there is a growing concentration in terms of supermarkets and hypermarkets, discount stores, and wholesalers. The advancement of retail chains has accelerated and they now have significant market share. In the EU countries, food retail turnover is characterized by concentration, with more than 90% of turnover coming from retail chains. Therefore, in the present study, the choice was made to analyse the average indicators of the sector and to compare them with the indicators of the largest sales companies in addition to the financial data of the top 100 companies with the highest turnover both in Hungary and Romania. The article provides an insight into the economic, property, income and liquidity situation of Hungarian and Romanian companies, which are dominant in food retailing. It also describes the liabilities structure and asset composition of the companies surveyed in the two countries. It can be stated that the short-term liquidity of Romanian enterprises in the case of the liquidity ratio and the quick liquidity ratio lags behind the values experienced by Hungarian enterprises. The value of cash-level liquidity is similar to the values in Hungary, it is characterized by a low but increasing trend. Comparing the indicators of the examined Hungarian enterprise and the sector, it can be observed that in 2015, when the analysed companies showed a loss of profit, negative values can also be recorded in the case of the average profitability indicators of the sector. The article also covers future analysis possibilities and perspectives.