Alfamart accelerates growth with more aggressive expansion

MANILA, Philippines — Alfamart, the minimart chain of the SM Group, is embarking on a more aggressive growth as it ramps up store expansion starting this year.

SM Investments Corp. (SMIC) president and chief executive officer Frederic DyBuncio said Alfamart intends to increase its expansion from 250 new stores a year to at least 400 starting this year.

Alfamart has a total network of 1,692 branches, most of which are located outside Metro Manila, as of end-2023.

Each store carries up to 4,000 stock-keeping units.

Last year, a total of 287 new Alfamart stores were opened within Luzon. In June last year, Alfamart reached a new milestone with the opening of its 1,500th store in the country.

Alfamart is a small format minimart grocery store located primarily in residential neighborhoods. It offers a range of essential groceries with supermarket pricing.

A joint venture by the SM Group with Indonesia-based minimart operator PT Sumber Alfaria Trijaya Tbk, Alfamart started operations in the Philippines in 2014, with its first concept store in Cavite.

Alfamart is operating under SM Markets, the food retail brand of SM Retail, whose businesses include food, non-food and specialty retail stores.

Alfamart posted sales of P28.4 billion in 2023, with nine percent same store sales growth.

SMIC said 2022 was the first year that Alfamart reported positive results on P23.3 billion sales, 22 percent higher than the previous year.