Alliance Boots, including our associates and joint ventures, has pharmacy-led health and beauty retail businesses in 11 countries, each focused on helping people look and feel their best.
Together with our associates and joint ventures, we operate more than 3,280 health and beauty retail stores, of which just under 3,180 have a pharmacy. In Europe we are the clear market leader in pharmacy with stores in the UK, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Lithuania and Russia. We also have pharmacies in Thailand and our associates and joint ventures operate pharmacies in Switzerland, China, Italy and Croatia. In addition, around 50 Boots branded stores operate in the Middle East and Sweden on a franchised basis.
Our stores are located in convenient locations and put the pharmacist at the heart of healthcare. Our pharmacists are well placed to provide a significant role in the provision of healthcare services, working closely with other primary healthcare providers in the communities we serve.
Our principal retail brand in the Health & Beauty Division is Boots, which we trade under in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Norway and Thailand and are continuing to trial in The Netherlands. The Boots offering is differentiated from that of competitors due to the product brands which we own and ‘only at Boots’ exclusive products, together with our long established reputation for trust and customer care.
In addition, Boots Opticians has around 655 optical practices in the UK, of which around 190 operate on a franchised basis.
We recognise the special status of Boots as the UK’s most trusted pharmacy brand and continue to enhance our position as a leading provider of healthcare, beauty advice and services in local communities. We do this through investment in existing stores, by expanding our store portfolio and enhancing our online offering.
Our pharmaceutical wholesale businesses, together with our associates and joint ventures, supply medicines, other healthcare products and related services to over 160,000 pharmacies, doctors, health centres and hospitals from over 370 distribution centres in 21 countries.
Our businesses provide high core service levels to pharmacists in terms of frequency of delivery, product availability, delivery accuracy, timeliness and reliability at competitive prices. We also offer our customers innovative added-value services which help pharmacists develop their own businesses. We consistently deliver high standards of efficiency and effectiveness.
In addition to the wholesale of medicines and other healthcare products, we provide services to pharmaceutical manufacturers who are increasingly seeking to gain greater control over their product distribution while at the same time outsourcing non-core activities. These services include pre-wholesale and contract logistics, direct deliveries to pharmacies, and specialised medicine delivery including related home healthcare.
Scale is very important in pharmaceutical wholesaling. In addition to being the largest pharmaceutical wholesaler/distributor in Europe, Alliance Boots typically ranks as one of the top three in the individual countries in which we operate. In 2010/11 we became the majority shareholder in Hedef Alliance, one of the largest pharmaceutical wholesalers in Turkey, and we significantly strengthened our position in Germany, Europe’s largest pharmaceutical market, following the acquisition of ANZAG.
We continually seek to grow our wholesale and related distribution activities organically and through acquisitions, including investments in associates and joint ventures. These acquisitions are either in current or complementary business areas in countries in which we already operate or in new geographical markets which are typically large, fast growing and where we see the potential for market consolidation.
In our Health & Beauty Division, we have highly regarded and long established product brands such as No7, Soltan and Botanics. Our development, packaging and product marketing capabilities are very important.
We have recently launched a major new healthcare brand, Boots Pharmaceuticals, bringing together 160 years of Boots expertise in developing trusted healthcare products for our customers. Boots Pharmaceuticals has the widest range of healthcare products of any brand in the UK, including therapeutically proven medicines, natural alternatives, vitamins and first aid products.
The Boots Laboratories Serum7 skincare range was successfully launched in Italy, in partnership with Procter & Gamble, and in Spain. It is now sold in four European countries. In addition, we have recently launched Boots Laboratories Solei SP, a new suncare brand, which we are selling to independent pharmacies in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain and we are increasing sales of No7 to third party retailers and distributors in countries where we do not have a retail presence.
We have entered into long term partnerships with a select number of third party brand owners to sell their products in Boots stores on an exclusive basis, sharing in the future brand equity. We also continue to manufacture a significant proportion of the own brand and exclusive products that we sell.
Almus, our range of generic medicines and Alvita, our range of patient care products are sold in five countries through our Pharmaceutical Wholesale Division.