In this five-year plan, Sonae MC also plans to proceed with 150 renovations (at an annual rate of 30 to "address the history") and hire 3,000 more people in the country, ruling out further attempts to internationalize the food retail brand that claims market leadership in Portugal.

Just days before opening two stores in Alijó and Pombal, to close this year with a total of 403, the CEO of Sonae MC announced that the first openings in 2026, scheduled for January, will take place in Queluz, Alcântara-Terra, Campo de Ourique and Malveira. Luís Moutinho says that "there is still a lot of room to grow in urban areas", with Greater Lisbon being "a great opportunity", as well as the interior of the country, "in areas where Continente is not yet present".

"The competition is strong and makes us run even faster, but that's not why we're expanding, but because we anticipate trends and feel that our brand has to be in places where it hasn't yet arrived and in areas of the country where we don't have 27% [of national market share]. We don't open stores to close them; the investment risk is high. But we know the country like no one else and we have the Continente Card, which allows us to know where our customers are," the manager explains, in a report by Eco.

The portfolio of company-owned stores currently comprises 41 Continente hypermarkets, 149 large Continente Modelo supermarkets, and 211 Continente Bom Dia convenience stores – excluding the 300 Meu Super franchises, a "complementary logic that allows for national distribution that even Continente Bom Dia cannot reach." The northern retailer is only not in the discount format, in which international competitors such as Lidl or Mercadona operate, and which it admits it "does not want to have."

Anniversary

Presented by the MC leader during a meeting with journalists on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the opening of the first Continente hypermarket in Matosinhos, the expansion plan until 2030 will focus on the concept of proximity and convenience, given that "people want to shop more often, in smaller baskets, and closer to home."

“In hypermarkets, which are under pressure, we will defend our business. Where we will grow is a little in Modelo and a lot in Continente Bom Dia,” he summarized.

“We want to protect hypermarkets, but not from a defensive perspective, but by reinventing the concept,” Moutinho emphasized. One of these strategies has involved, in some cases, reducing sales areas because “there is no longer space to work with such large stores” and “to be more comfortable for the customer.” This is what was done, for example, in Guimarães Shopping, Gaia Shopping, or the Colombo shopping center (Lisbon), where Continente once had 17,000 square meters and is now reduced to 11,000.

Online

Regarding Continente Online, which currently accounts for around 4% of the company's sales, twice the national penetration rate, Luís Moutinho claims a 50% share for the e-commerce platform that Sonae launched in 2001, where the greatest growth is coming from orders with fast deliveries and very low prices. Moutinho reports that online sales "are growing, but, speaking of food, the in-store shopping experience will always be far superior."