Financial Crisis Shapes Global Retail Outlook.

As the United Kingdom’s ranking on Retail Forward’s list of the best retail opportunities in the world sags, Brazil has muscled its way into a Top 10 list that is again led by China and Russia. In Retail Forward’s recently published annual Global Retail Outlook report, the company ranks the 10 largest retail markets based on forecasts of retail spending through 2013 and measures of market risks.

India, Malaysia and South Africa are the other emerging retail markets on the Top 10 list, which also includes the developed retail markets of the United States, Australia and Canada.

“The global financial crisis has caused consumer spending to slow worldwide,” comments Frank Badillo, Senior Economist for Retail Forward and author of the report. “But the impacts will weigh heaviest on developed markets in 2009. Consequently, we believe that the retail growth opportunities that emerge in 2010 and beyond will be shuffled somewhat by the recent turmoil,” he adds.

As stronger growth re-emerges beginning in 2010, the long-term retail opportunity will continue to be skewed toward Asia-Pacific countries, based on Retail Forward’s rankings of 30 key retail markets around the world. Conversely, European countries continue to lag in the rankings. Retail Forward’s rankings are based on a weighted index of three measures: (1) forecasted real growth rates of retail sales through 2013, (2) measures of market risks and (3) size of the retail market. The weighting is skewed in favor of growth (55%) instead of risk (25%) with market size given the least weight (20%).

Other key report findings:

Mapping the Global Opportunity. Australia, Malaysia and the United States continue to exhibit a unique combination of higher-than-average growth prospects and relatively low risk. This places them in the “Best Opportunity” quadrant of Retail Forward’s Global Retail Opportunity Map. Falling from best opportunity status last year is the United Kingdom which joins most other Western European countries as low risk but below-average growth countries. China, Russia and India lead a group of high-growth but risky markets. “China, Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil might be among the most tempting opportunities,” Badillo states, “but they also represent significant risks that could turn an opportunity into a challenge.”

Largest Retail Markets. Spain’s economic stumble, combined with Brazil’s sustained growth, moved Brazil onto the list of the Top 10 largest retail markets and rivaling India in retail market size. Russia’s retail market is forecast to nearly double in size by 2013 compared with 2008 and China remains on track to surpass Japan to become the second-largest retail market over the next five years.

Largest Markets by Category. While the United States is projected to remain the largest retail market across all broad product categories, China is forecast to become the second-largest apparel market in 2013. In the homegoods categories, the United Kingdom and Russia are projected to have relatively bigger homegoods markets compared to the overall size of their markets. The growing populations of China and India put the countries in second and fifth position, respectively, in terms of spending on food consumed at home.

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For more information at http://www.retailforward.com