The 223.7 thousand enterprises in activity within the Trade sector in 2014 (-1.3% compared to 2013) performed a turnover of EUR 120.6 billion (+3.2%) and employed 725.6 thousand persons (+0.3%).
Turnover was mainly focused (51.5%) on the Wholesale subsector (EUR 62.0 billion), with 36.6% (EUR 44.1 billion) having corresponded to Retail and 11.9% (EUR 14.4 billion) to the Automotive subsector (including sales and maintenance).
The total value of the commercial margin obtained by Trade enterprises amounted to EUR 20.7 billion (+3.9%), the equivalent to EUR 92.6 thousand per enterprise (+5.3%).
Considering the subsectors of Automotive trade and maintenance, Wholesale trade and Retail trade, the main products sold were, respectively, ‘vehicles’ (59.9% of the total turnover), 'fuel, building materials, chemicals and intermediates' (28.1%) and ‘food products, beverage and tobacco’ (33.2%).
In 2014 the number of “Large-sized Commercial Units” (UCDR) amounted to 3 204 establishments, mainly dedicated to food retail trade or food-predominant retail (50.8%) and the remaining were non-food predominant retail trade units. In 2014, there was an increase of 3.1% in turnover from UCDR, which reached EUR 16.2 billion.