Aldi, the German giant leading in the discount channel, has created a real estate company - Aldi Immobiliare S.r.l. - located in Bolzano in via Casse di Risparmio 18.

The initiative was developed with the purpose of managing the penetration of the Italian market with the various stores purchased and rented, the first of which should open in Trento. €200 million was destined for the opening of stores as well as of the logistics hub in Verona.

Aldis strategy is to open stores in towns with at least 30,000 inhabitants. If we consider that, in Italy, there are 146 towns with over 50,000 inhabitants and that Istat reports 416 towns with between 20,000 and 59,999 inhabitants, we can see how Aldi could open up to 520 units. If we hypothesise finding suitable properties in half of these, Aldi could then open around 220 stores.

Even though Aldi is one of the leading retailers with 4,700 stores in three continents (Europe, US and Australia) and a turnover of €67 billion, life wont be easy, as it will have to compete with Eurospin, Lidl and Md. Not only that, but it will have to deal with the fact that consumption indexes were negative during the entire 2016 period.