the expansion of its fledgling Go Wholesale format, the competition promises to get very interesting.  Makro, until recently, was pretty much the lone ranger in Thailand’s wholesale sector, and it is still incredibly popular. It is a bulk operator like Costco and Sam’s Club, and offers a massive selection of high-quality fresh food along with dry groceries and home appliances. Also like Costco and Sam’s, it serves end-consumers and is therefore an important retailer in its own right, although the majority of its customers are either HoReCa or food retailers.  Central Retail, Thailand’s second-biggest retail company, decided that Makro’s playing field was too big for one operator alone, and has begun a cautious rollout of its own wholesale concept, Go Wholesale. So far, there are 13 of them, cavernous affairs packed high with goodies and in many ways emulating Best of Makro, from the parking lot design to the product mix and showcasing, right down to the aquaria at the back of the warehouse with live fish awaiting their execution. Both Makro and Go Wholesale compete on value with bulk-packaged items heaped high on pallets lining wide aisles with concrete floors. Forklifts hustle up and down the aisles, keeping the stores stocked up. Lines are long but the checkout experience offered by both companies is as fast as it gets. Go Wholesale has obviously studied its peers long and hard, but it is still learning and adapting, and the stores are noticeably less trafficked than Makro’s during comparable times. Fresh food sales galloping For now, the market for Makro is safe, while that of its sibling retailer Lotus’s is already under the pump from Big C and Central’s own Tops supermarkets in Thailand’s vibrant food retail market.  Total revenues from all three of CP Axtra’s businesses — wholesale, retail and mall rental — amounted to 259.0 billion Thai baht (US$8.1 billion) in the first half of 2025, an increase of 2.0 per cent year-on-year. The sales part of it (that is, excluding the landlord business) grew by 2.5 per cent, comprising 2.8 per cent for wholesale and 2.2 per cent for retail. The company cited fresh food, private label and ‘value’ items in its suite of exclusive brands as the leading growth drivers. Fresh food sales continue to trend 10 per cent above the level of the first six months of 2024, and now accounts for 37 per cent of sales.  The rental business was down slightly in the first half, by 0.1 per cent, but was improving in the second quarter as Makro wholesale stores expanded their utilisation of rental tenants inside its big boxes.  Moving further down the income statement, gross margin was 14.4 per cent, up 30 basis points from a year ago and net profit grew 5.8 per cent to 4.3 billion baht (US$140 million). Store growth weighs in on the top line Company same-store sales were flat in the first half for Makro and up 0.1 per cent for Lotus’s, despite the fresh food boom, so store growth once again weighed in heavily on the top line. Four new wholesale units were opened in the first half, and two more are planned for the second. On the retail side, the company is rolling out its Go Fresh concept, a mini-supermarket with up to 300 square metres of floorspace, at breathtaking speed. It opened 43 of them in the first half and has another 157 planned for the second half. It will also open two new hypermarkets and two supermarkets. The company ended the first half with 2,749 stores in all, including 80 in Malaysia. The Go Fresh concept accounts for 2,097 of the store fleet. As the name suggests, 40 per cent of the merchandise assortment is fresh food, which differentiates it from 7-Eleven and Tops Daily, its major competitors in the mini-supermarket space. Omnichannel continues to exceed 20 per cent of sales After breaching 20 per cent of sales in the first quarter for the first time, omnichannel chalked up 20.6 per cent of sales in the second. That’s compared with 16.8 per cent a year ago, so a huge increase.  Wholesale edges out retail revenues Wholesale under the various iterations of Makro brought in 54 per cent of company revenues in the first six months of the year. A good deal of its 2.8 per cent revenue growth has come from the opening of nine new stores over the past 12 months to finish the first half with a portfolio of 179.  Mall income The company leases almost 1.2 million square metres of space to small tenants mainly on the periphery of its Lotus hypermarkets in Thailand, but increasingly also utilising space at the front of its Makro wholesale stores. Overall occupancy is 92 per cent. Rental income from the Lotus’s retail side of the business is almost 6 per cent of total retail revenues. It was down slightly (-0.9 per cent year-on-year in the first half) but the company noted this was due to “a shift in tenant mix within the shopping centres and ongoing renovation of spaces in accordance with the plan.”   The company is keen to lease more space at its wholesale stores. Rental income from this source increased by 19 per cent year-on-year in the first half but remains a very small component (less than 1 per cent compared with almost 6 per cent) of overall revenues from the wholesale business. It therefore represents a material opportunity. Vibrant community hubs Like other large retail operators in Thailand, CP Axtra is keen to promote its hypermarket-anchored malls as community hubs that attract customers from all generations. This is no idle ambition: already the Lotus’s centres, even some of the frumpier ones, are heavily trafficked throughout the week and a favorite destination for consumers looking for somewhere to hang out. Many are on two levels, with a large range of general merchandise on one level and groceries on the other. In a region where the climate can be severe and the outside air quality poor, these centres offer a refuge for all.