Latin America: leading retailers 2021, by retail revenue

In 2021, the Mexican convenience store operator, FEMSA Comercio, generated the highest sales among Latin American retailers, with a value exceeding 15 billion U.S. dollars. The Chilean retail company, Cencosud, followed with the second highest sales value that year, earning 14.5 billion dollars.

Widespread conglomerates

Though many of Latin America's leading retailers are based in Mexico, Brazil, and Chile, the majority of these companies are multinational. FEMSA, for example, runs its largest operation bottling Coca Cola in ten Latin American countries. Cencosud, though founded in Chile, has more supermarkets in Argentina and a comparable share in Brazil.

Cencosud developments

In recent years, the number of Cencosud supermarkets has shown the most consistent growth rate in Chile and Peru. Meanwhile, operations in Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia peaked around the mid-2010s before scaling back by 2018, corresponding to a rise and fall in Cencosud's annual cost of sales from 2012 to 2018. The company is highly diversified and widely known for issuing credit cards, among many other ventures in addition to its hypermarkets, shopping malls, and department stores.