INTERVIEW – Belgian DIY Chain Hubo Enters Albania, Targets 15% Market Share in Bulgaria

The 650 square metre store will be opened in the capital Tirana, with a population of some 650,000 people, after which Hubo will expand to other locations like the smaller port cities of Durres and Vlore, De Canck said.

The company plans to open three or four stores in Albania, one of Europe’s poorest states, in the next two to three years.

All stores will be opened through joint ventures with local partners, in which Hubo will be a minority partner, De Canck added.

Hubo set foot in Bulgaria last month, in joint venture with a local partner, and entered Kosovo last December.

Hubo Bulgaria, a joint venture with local building materials trader Detex Trading, opened a 2,000 square metre DIY supermarket worth 3.5 million euro ($4.4 million) in the capital Sofia last Friday. The company said it plans to open a total 40 stores through franchisees in the country, which joined the European Union last year, in the next 10 years.

Hubo could use Detex's over 40 resellers across the country to become its franchisees, De Canck said.

He gave no estimate of the size of the DIY market in Bulgaria but said it would aim to get a 15% market share "as soon as possible".

The company has no concerns about the slowdown in construction in Bulgaria after the oversupplied market cracked the bubble. The company targets end consumers who will always need to renovate their houses, De Canck said.

Hubo's competitors on the Bulgarian market are Germany's Praktiker, Bulgarian-based Doverie Brico and Austrian do-it-yourself chain bauMax. Doverie Brico is the franchisee of French do-it-yourself retail chain Mr. Bricolage for Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and Macedonia.

In Kosovo, Hubo plans to open at least one more store, in the capital Pristina. Its existing store is located in the town of Ferizaj, 40 kilometres south of Pristina.

“We plan expansion. […] Our [local] partner is looking for a good location in Pristina,” he said and added that once the location is found, the company will start works on the new store immediately.

For the time being Hubo, which runs two stores in Macedonia and one 4,000 square metre supermarket in Moldova, has no other plans to expand in southeast Europe. De Canck said the market in Romania was already taken by Europe’s leading market players and that it was too early for any plans for Croatia.

However it could consider one more store in Macedonia, again with a local partner.

Belgian Hubo (www.hubo.be), set up in 1972, runs a network of 100 hypermarkets across Europe.