Kroger named the world's third-largest retailer

Kroger is the world’s third-largest retailer behind Wal-Mart and Costco, according to a new ranking by the National Retail Federation.

The downtown Cincinnati-based supermarket chain’s 2014 acquisitions of North Carolina supermarket chain Harris Teeter and digital health goods provider Vitacost.com helped propel Kroger’s growth and lifted its ranking from No. 6 in the world a year ago.

Not reflected in the figures: Kroger’s takeover of Milwaukee-based Roundy’s Inc., which added $4 billion to the company’s $108 billion in total revenues.

Wholesale warehouse retailer Costco was No. 2 in the world with 2014 revenues of $112 billion.

Wal-Mart remained the prohibitive No. 1 on the listing with more than $485 billion in sales – making it larger than the next four retailers combined.

The ranking was issued in the January issue of the trade group’s Stores magazine and was based on 2014 fiscal year sales. The top 10 of the list is dominated by supercenter, discount and drug retailers based in the U.S. and Europe.

Many of those retail formats, however, have grown using food sales to drive customer traffic and flooding traditional supermarkets with additional competition.

The list illustrates Kroger’s dominance versus traditional supermarket rivals: The next-largest supermarket retailer in the world is Germany’s Edeka Group, with $62 billion in sales. California’s Safeway was the next largest U.S. supermarket chain, but did only one-third of Kroger’s sales.

Kroger was also the largest retailer doing business in one country, followed by No. 11 Target, which did $72 billion in annual sales.

Cincinnati-based Macy’s also made the list at No. 35 with $28 billion in sales revenue.