Growth on the fringes of the desert

Many people still regard the Dark Continent as a blank area on the worldwide DIY map. The World DIY Report from the European manufacturers’ association FEDIYMA, for instance, includes only Morocco as a country with a significant and established DIY retail presence, apart from South Africa and Egypt (which are covered by separate articles in this issue of DIY International). On the international DIY retailing side, only the French see North Africa as a growth area. The efforts made by Mr. Bricolage and its Brico-Invest partner to establish the company’s franchise system in Morocco go back around ten years. Finally at the end of 2004 came the opening in the port city of Casablanca of this Maghrib state’s first Mr. Bricolage store. Two more outlets were added over the next few years, in Marrakech and Tangiers. With these three stores the group achieved sales of € 12.7 mio in 2011, and growth of 19.6 per cent on the previous year’s result. It puts the strong increase down not only to the opening in Tangiers but also to the positive way the store in Casablanca is developing. June 2012 saw the group bring into operation its fourth Moroccan DIY store, this one in the port city of Agadir. It is just under 2 000 m² in size. The original Mr. Bricolage planning aimed for a total of five stores. In 2004, the same year that saw the opening of the first Mr. Bricolage store, came the founding of the local Bricoma chain; it opened its first DIY store of 3 000 m² in Rabat. Three years later a second outlet was brought into operation. In the meantime Bricoma has seven stores, having overtaken the French competition. The locations are all in cities on the Atlantic coast, with the exception of Marrakech in the interior of the country. According to information from the company, it has invested just on 275 mio dirhams (approx. € 25 mio) in these stores with a total retail area of 21 000 m². It has announced the next opening, which is planned for Salé during this current year. Another French name in Morocco is Weldom. This means that the Groupe Adeo, which has a 50 per cent stake in Domaxel, the cooperative central office of Weldom, has a toehold in the market of this North African kingdom as well. Bricorama is yet another competitor, in the country since 2010. It operates one DIY store with a retail area of some 1 500 m² in Tangiers. Plans for further expansion into fast-growing regions like Agadir and Rabat have not been implemented so far. However, Bricorama had taken its…