With Mercadona gaining weight in the sector and the white label has become the unexpected ram of the market, more and more chains of retail They ask themselves the same question: How the hell do they grow in Spain? How to gain business share? The data of the sector suggest that more and more chains arrive at the same answer: leaving behind old formats and betting on the neighborhood ‘supers’. If the customer does not go to the store… it is the store that goes directly to the customer, either landing in their neighborhood or ‘sneaking’ in airports and stations.
The question is whether it will work for them.
Putting sixth. The data has revealed it theEconomist: If there are no surprises and the plans that the companies in the sector have been outlining are fulfilled, this year hundreds and hundreds of new supermarkets will open in the cities of Spain.
Only Carrefour, Dia and Alcampo will add about 350 And to them are added the openings planned by chains such as Eroski, Consum, Unide, Lidl or Aldi, sometimes with direct management and other times through franchises. The most curious thing, however, is not the figure itself, but what it hides: a step back from the old hypermarkets in favor of the ‘super’ ones, smaller and closer to the customer.
Going down to detail. The largest deployment will come from Carrefour. In the remainder of the decade, the French group wants to open 750 stores convenience stores in Spain (net openings), especially under the Carrefour Express brand. Most of them (450) will be deployed between the remainder of 2026, 2027 and 2028.
At the end of last year Alcampo also announced its intention to undertake a “growth phase” with between 80 and 100 openings per year and the remodeling of 31 stores. Its commitment also involves the ‘hypermarket’ format, although when presenting its roadmap the company only mentioned one, under a franchise regime, in Toledo. The objective is similar to that of Grupo Dia, which has also set the objective of achieving the hundred openings throughout 2026.
Are they the only ones? At all. They also have expansion plans for Eroski (which aspires to launch 75 new stores per year over the next three years) and Lidl, aldi and consumptionwhich will add up to dozens of openings. Only Aldi plans to launch 40 new supermarkets throughout 2026, which will allow it to further strengthen a commercial network that at the end of 2025 was around 500 establishments with a commercial area of about 549,000 m2.
Added to these new features are already announced by other chains that will probably be announced by other firms over the coming weeks and months. Mercadona, without going any further, has not yet presented its results.
Beyond the numbers. The opening figures are interesting, but even more so is the reading they leave: the chains are not opening just any type of store. Its commitment focuses above all on local stores located in urban centers, prioritizing them over larger spaces in the suburbs.
In other words, the supermarket is strengthened and the ‘hyper’ loses weight, a format that has more than five decades present in the Spanish market and achieved considerable success both socially and in sales volume.
In the doldrums. Right now it is estimated that in Spain there are around 500 hypermarketsa wide network that has been losing strength over the years in favor of the ‘super’ format, which has more than 48,200 establishments.
According to data from Worldpanel by Numerator, in 2025 the hyper market share was 11.3%. A triple bad data. Not only does it show a year-on-year drop of 0.8%, but it is also far from the 30% it reached in the 1990s. The figure is also well below the super market share, which is around 67%.
The example of Carrefour. Probably the company that best reflects the change in trend is Carrefour. The French signature was a pioneer in the commitment to hypermarkets in Spain (one opened in El Prat de Llobregat in the 70s), but in recent years its commitment has largely pivoted towards another format: that of small stores and even operated by franchisees.
“The convenience format gives us an extraordinary opportunity to grow,” recently recognized Alexandre Bompard, CEO of the company. Its commitment is not only to extend its convenience ‘super’ network. It wants to reach more places, gaining presence for example in airports and train stations. As for the hypers, consider giving them a spin, dedicating up to 10% from the drugstore space, pets… products beyond food.
What about the ‘hypers’? That we Spaniards seem less and less dice to make our purchases in these commercial spaces, characterized by their large size, wide range and location. At least that is what indicators such as those published by Woldpanel by Numerator suggest, which reflects a gradual loss of share. There is who is speaking now of the “hyper crisis”.
That decrease is perhaps one of the reasons which explain that Carrefour have seen burdened his market sharenext to other chains with a similar approach. The French firm boasts of being “absolute leader” in the hypermarket network in Spain. Of the 1,500 establishments that manages, 200 respond to that concept.
Images | Eroski Group (Flickr) and Carrefour
Via | theEconomist
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings