Billa (supermarket)

Billa AG
Private
Industry Retail
Founded 1953
Headquarters Wiener Neudorf, Austria
Number of locations
3,645 stores (2014)
Key people
Volker Hornsteiner,
Josef Siess
Products Supermarkets
Revenue Increase 13.02 billion (2014)
Owner REWE International AG
Number of employees
76,174 (2014)
Website www.billa.at
Billa Flagship-Store in Vienna
On the outskirts, more adventurous designs can be found. This Billa store is in Favoriten, Vienna

BILLA (German pronunciation: [ˈbɪla]) is a European supermarket chain originating in Austria, a market where the brand maintains its largest presence with more than 1000 stores.[1] The company, which was founded by Karl Wlaschek in 1953, is currently owned by Germany's REWE Group.

The supermarkets' name is derived from a contraction of BILliger LAden, German for 'inexpensive shop' [2]

Billa in Europe

Billa in Europe

Billa operates stores in these 8 European countries:

Country No. of stores
Austria Austria 1,000+
Czech Republic Czech Republic 205
Slovakia Slovakia 130
Bulgaria Bulgaria 110
Romania Romania 87
Russia Russia 72
Croatia Croatia 49
Ukraine Ukraine 29

The stores in Hungary were sold to Spar.[3]

Billa in Bulgaria

The company opened its first supermarket in Bulgaria in 2000 and has since then expanded to cover 35 Bulgarian cities, operating a total of 104 supermarkets as of September 2016.

In June 2006, the roof of one of the stores in Sofia collapsed during a storm. There were no injuries reported. There was an investigation to determine the reason for the poor quality of the construction work and whether the same problems are present at other Billa stores in the country, with 11 people eventually going to court.[4]

Billa in Romania

Billa was owned by Rewe Group, which also operates XXL, Penny Market and Selgros outlets in Romania. The company used the tagline Billa zilnic - Cel mai bun pentru mine ("Billa daily - The best for me") and opened its first store in Bucharest in 1999. Since then, Billa has turned into one of the most well represented supermarket chains, with 87 stores (as of September 2016) in Romania.[5] In 2015, all Billa stores were sold to Carrefour Group,[6] and by the end of 2017 will be rebranded into Carrefour Market.[7]

See also

References

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