Walmart-owned Game supermarket chain is replacing Palace supermarket in West Hills Mall in Accra. This will be the retailer’s third store in Ghana, which will be followed by a fourth outlet, later in the year.

Game is opening its third store in Ghana, in Accra’s West Hills Mall. The Walmart-owned South African supermarket chain will replace current The Palace supermarket, a domestic retailer which has served as the mall’s anchor tenant – jointly with Shoprite – from when it first opened in 2014.

The new outlet will be Game’s third store in Ghana, after it first entered the country in 2007. Until 2017, however, the chain – which is operated across Africa by South African retailer Massmart – still had a single store in the country. In 2017, it opened its second store in Kumasi City Mall. A new store is set to open, later this year, in the Achimota Retail Centre in Accra as Game hopes to close 2018 with four stores in Ghana and having almost doubled its floorspace in the country.

At West Hills, Game will compete with Shoprite which has, jointly with outgoing Palace, served as one of the mall’s anchor tenants. The new outlet is expected to have 3,500m² of retail floorspace and, according to Trendtype’s Leading Modern Retailers in Ghana dashboard, will increase the retailer’s current floorspace in the country by 36%.

Although the new Game store will not, on its own, change the paradigm of modern grocery retail in Ghana, it will more than slightly alter the competitive landscape. With two new stores Game will become the fourth largest grocery retailer in the country and, if just barely, become the market leader among international players – a role until now filled by Shoprite. More so, the reduction in Palace’s store network brings it ever closer to competitor Marina Group.  Domestic retailer Melcom remains, however, unbitten by movements among its competitors, currently holding more than 50% available modern grocery retail floorspace in Ghana.