Müller (store)

Müller Holding GmbH & Co. KG
Type	Limited, KG
Industry	Retail
Founded	March 5, 1953
Headquarters	Ulm, Germany
Number of locations	908
Area served	Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain
Key people	Erwin Franz Müller; Elke Menold;
Revenue	€4.01 billion (2020)[1]
Number of employees	35,000 (2023)[2]
Website	www.mueller.de

Müller Ltd. & Co. KG (Müller) is a chain of retail stores with headquarters in Ulm, Germany. Between 2004[3] and 2019 the company was registered in London. Since 2019 it has been registered in Vaduz, Liechtenstein.[4]

History

The hairdresser Erwin Franz Müller founded his company in Ulm on 5 March 1953. By 1968 the company had opened additional outlets in Munich and Karlsruhe. In 1976 the construction of a corporate headquarters began in Ulm-Jungingen. In 1978 annual revenue crossed 100 million D-Mark for the first time. From 1980 to 1985 the company opened 59 new outlets, was converted into the Müller GmbH & Co. KG in 1985 and then opened another 86 outlets by 1990. Since then the company has expanded in Europe.

Müller has more than 34,000 employees.[2] In 2010 the company earned revenues of 2.42 billion Euro. Erwin Müller and Elke Menold are General Managers of the company.

In 2004, the company was transformed into a Limited & Co. KG (a hybrid of the English cognate of the German GmbH and the German word "Compagnie Kommanditgesellschaft", meaning "limited partnership") when the company registered under English law in London.

Müller in Europe

By 2023 Müller had a total of 908 outlets in 7 European countries:[2]

Country	No. of stores
Austria	102
Croatia	88
Germany	575
Hungary	33
Slovenia	19
Spain	22
Switzerland	69

Products

Müller is primarily a cosmetics store with large drugstore (approx. 50 000 items) and perfumery (approx. 28 000 items) section,[2] but apart from beauty care products it also sells commodities and fashion accessories, health food and dietary supplements, as well as some over-the-counter drugs, household products, toys, multi-media (i.e. movies on DVD as well as music CDs), stationery and books. Its portfolio consists of approx. 188 000 products total.[2]

Unlike competing chains such as dm-drogerie markt, Müller mostly sells products directly from the German domestic market (in a manner similar to parallel importing) in all countries where it operates. Because of this, many Croats go to Müller to shop for cosmetics, detergents and most-famously, Nutella[5] as the one offered in other retail stores is of lower quality.[6]

Controversy

Müller ban employees from wearing Hijab and went to European Court of Justice in Luxemburg to ban two women from working in its store for wearing Hijab. Many joined a campaign to boycott it.

References

Published in public register
"Fakten". mueller.de. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
Wirtschaftwoche vom 18. Juli 2006 “Der König der Drugstores ”
"Müller zieht nach Vaduz".
"Opet svi pričaju da su stvari u našim dućanima bitno gore nego na zapadu pa smo ih (posve nestručno) testirali".
"Testing Reveals Big Brands Selling Inferior Products in Croatia". September 2017.

External links

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[1] Published in public register

[numbers-2] "Fakten". mueller.de. Retrieved 2023-08-05.

[3] Wirtschaftwoche vom 18. Juli 2006 “Der König der Drugstores ”

[4] "Müller zieht nach Vaduz".

[5] "Opet svi pričaju da su stvari u našim dućanima bitno gore nego na zapadu pa smo ih (posve nestručno) testirali".

[6] "Testing Reveals Big Brands Selling Inferior Products in Croatia". September 2017.