Mercadona boosts its profit by 37% in 2024 and achieves profits in Portugal for the first time

Mercadona has increased its profits by 37% in 2024 and has made profits since it landed in Portugal, the business in the Portuguese country came out of losses and achieved profits of seven million euros.

This was stated on Tuesday by Mercadona’s president, Juan Roig, at the press conference to present the 2024 results, where he described the year as “magnificent” and highlighted the company’s solidarity during the 29 October recession. “It seems that talking about profits is not a healthy thing, and I think that is very, very good,” said Roig, who, however, stressed that “a company is not only created to make money.”

Regarding the data, he explained that Mercadona’s turnover rose by 9%, reaching around 38 billion euros. Gross profit was 2.8 billion, of which 700 “we have distributed among all the company’s workers” in variable incentives. At this point, he pointed out that a base worker with four years’ seniority has received a minimum of 6,000 euros for achieving objectives, which 95% of the workforce achieved in the year.

Roig also said that 716 million euros have been paid in taxes, which means that net profits stand at 1,384 million euros, 37.17% higher than last year. Of these profits, 1,100 million euros have been reinvested in improving the company (80%) and 275 million euros (20%) have been distributed in dividends to the nine shareholders that make up Mercadona’s capital.

Looking ahead to 2025, Roig expects sales to grow by around 3.5% to reach around 40.1 billion euros, to invest around 1 billion euros in the company, to increase the workforce by 1,000 employees over the current 110,000 and “consolidate the magnificent profits of 2024”. He also pointed out that “if raw materials prices go down and if we improve productivity a lot”, the objective is to lower product prices for consumers, which is “our obsession”.

He also boasted that the online market is already profitable , just like the ready-to-eat market that is being implemented in stores. “We have a great model, we say that whoever has a model has a treasure and we make many brave decisions, sometimes unpopular and sometimes annoying,” he said.

On the other hand, Roig has also dedicated a section of his speech to the flood and to remembering the victims. In addition, he has stated that 21 stores of the company were affected by the flood and were seriously damaged and he has highlighted the “devastating images” that were seen although the day after the catastrophe the reconstruction began, reopening stores progressively from two or three days later. The last establishment to return to normality took place on January 14.