Sweden: Good Year for Swedish QSR

 
In 2006 the Swedish quickservicemarket increased. The 35 largest players continued to grow by 5.5% to total revenues of €1.168 m, reports Delfi Marknadspartner. The fillingstation chain Statoil and the hamburger-chain Max are the winners again together with upward climbers like SSP, Subway and Espresso House.
 
Report by Jan Börjesson.
 

 
2006 was another good year for the Swedish quickservice-players. The total market increased by over 4%, while the chain-related players had a growth of 5.5%. Nearly all big chains reported increases in sales, some of them by over 10%. Among the top ten players McDonald’s reports a small increase in sales by 1.6%. The hamburger giant opened four new restaurants, but closed the same number of units. The company’s market share among the four hamburger chains fell from 50.6% to 49.5%. The main reason for this decrease is the national chain Max, which is now the main challenger to McDonald’s in Sweden. Max reports an increase by nearly 20% and has passed Burger King in the ranking. Nine new restaurants opened in 2006 and the same number is planned to open this year. There are many reasons for the chain’s success during the last years. One is that Max took notice of the health-trend very early and offered low calorie burgers, GI-burgers, fat- and sugar- free alternatives on their menues. Other reasons are an aggressive marketing, a guarantee of using just Swedish meat in their burgers and the installation of a system for faster service. Burger King, too, had a rather good year 2006 with an increase of 10% thanks to the main franchisee, Nordic Service Partner, NSP, who operates 21 of the 58 Burger King restaurants in Sweden. The average sales in the NSP restaurants are higher than in the system’s other restaurants.
 

 
Filling station chain Statoil is now the second-largest QSR player in Sweden after McDonald’s. The 497 outlet-strong chain reports an increase of 14% for their quickservice-sales last year, averaging about €200,000 per store. The main products are hot dogs, hamburgers, mashed potatoes, sandwiches, salads, bake off-products and premium coffee. Shop-in-shop concepts in filling stations and convenience stores have been a winner in the Swedish quickservice-market during the last five years. The market share for this category has now reached 20%, which means that they are the second largest category after the hamburger chains. The filling-stations and convenience–stores have also adapted the new trend concerning healthier products and better coffee. For example salads and baguettes have a higher growth than hot dogs and hamburgers. Many filling stations and convenience stores also offer different kinds of coffees – at considerably lower prices than coffee shops.
 

 
| 25 June 2007 |