Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Markets and Companies, Retail

In 2015, Stockmann AS discontinued the sale of electronics and toys in its department store, it appears from the annual report.

According to the management of Stockmann AS, the Estonian retail market grew in 2015 at a faster rate than in any other of the past eight years. Growth was underpinned by improvements in the labor market, low inflation and low interest rates. The most important factor was low oil prices, which reduced people's spending on fuel and left them more money to buy goods and services.

Domestic consumption was supported also by growth in the real wage, which happened on the back of an increase in the average wage and reductions in prices. Estonian residents have become richer in recent years – the ratio of salaries and securities to borrowings, adjusted to inflation, has more than doubled, Stockmann said.

The number of employees of Stockmann AS declined 5.2% to 381 and wage costs in the financial year 2015 totaled 4 million euros.

The Stockmann group trimmed its pretax loss from 100 million euros in 2014 to 73.7 million euros last year. Sales dropped from 1.6 billion euros to 1.4 billion euros.