Circle K Fuel Brand Doubles Market Share in Five Years — OPIS

The Circle K Fuel brand has more than doubled its U.S. gas brand market share in five years since the proprietary brand launched at pumps in Florida in 2018, according to OPIS MarketSharePro.

In 2018, Circle K ranked 21st as a gas brand with a 1.58% market share versus year-to-date 2023, with a No. 11 ranking at 3.29%. The numbers are based on fleet transactions.

Canadian-based Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., which owns the Circle K brand, said during its Sept. 7 quarterly earnings call with analysts that it now has 4,200 North American stores offering Circle K Fuel. The corporate website says Couche-Tard has about 9,200 stores in North America, and most of them sell fuel. Some stores in Canada are branded Couche-Tard, and Northern Tier stores in the U.S. are branded Holiday.

In the past month, Circle K reached ninth place as a gas brand at 3.40%, leapfrogging over established gas brands such as Sunoco (11th), Marathon (12th), Phillips 66 (16th), 76 (17th) and Citgo (19th), the OPIS figures show.

For several years, Circle K has ranked second in the nation behind Shell in gasoline sales based on store brand. But the badge lagged as a gas brand because many of its pumps carried major brand fuel, and the stores that sold unbranded fuel did not promote Circle K as a fuel brand.

Couche-Tard began aggressively rebranding pumps in 2018. In 2019, the company started piloting various concepts at the gas islands, converting some major brand sites to its proprietary brand as well as modifying brand elements at Circle K stores badged with a major brand at the pump. And in 2020, Couche-Tard began a campaign to replace other fuel brands with its own brand.

Couche-Tard has heavily promoted its proprietary fuel. During the quarter ending July 23, more than 7,000 North American stores hosted local "fuel days" offering discounts.

"These fuel events, including our first-ever Global Fuel Day held on August 31, are leading to percentage growth in fuel volumes as well as increased exposure of the Circle K Fuel brand, at the same time bringing significant value to our customers," Chief Executive Officer Brian Hannasch told analysts during the September conference call.

Last year, Couche-Tard promoted the Circle K Fuel brand with "flash sales." The company declared Sept. 1 "Circle K Fuel Day." Customers received a 40ct/gal discount for buying Circle K Fuel between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. local time. Any customer in line for gas before 7 p.m. would get the discount.

Like many major oil brands, Circle K also promotes the detergency of its premium gasoline. The company says Circle K Premium Gasoline contains double the cleaning detergents required by the federal government.

In the past, Couche-Tard has advertised special discounts on its Circle K Premium Gasoline. For example, customers could get 20cts/gal off on premium fuel purchased on Thursdays.

This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

--Reporting by Donna Harris, dharris@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 18, 2023 15:06 ET (19:06 GMT)

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