BIGresearch's January Retail Ratings: Walgreens Remains Store Shopped Most Often for Prescription Drugs

COLUMBUS, OH--(Marketwire - February 5, 2008) - Walgreens is gaining in consumer share and continues to be the retailer shopped most often for prescription drugs with an overall share of 16.1% (compared to 15.5% in January 2007), according to BIGresearch's (http://www.bigresearch.com) latest Retail Ratings Report for January 2008. Fellow druggist CVS, with a share of 13% (compared to 12.8% in '07), and Wal-Mart, with 9.2% of the share (vs. 7.7%), round out the top three.

Wal-Mart's $4 prescription drug program appears to be successful among consumers who report a household income of less than $50,000. Walgreens still leads in this consumer segment with a share of 16.6%, but Wal-Mart moves into second place with 12.6% share. CVS follows closely behind at 12.1%.

"Wal-Mart pioneered the $4 prescription drug program and forced competitors to respond," said Pam Goodfellow, Senior Analyst of BIGresearch. "It's no surprise that their move is paying off among lower income consumers, especially during turbulent economic conditions."

Compared to 2007, Wal-Mart experienced positive growth in the prescription drug category among consumers with a household income less than $50,000, with a Consumer Equity Index™ (CEI) of 130.84. (CEI measures growth in share year over year.) Walgreens also gained consumer share with a CEI of 104.18. CVS lost share with a CEI of 96.70.

Among the top ten stores for prescription drugs, Costco (54.8%), Target (24.8%), Wal-Mart (19.1%), Walgreens (5.7%) and Kroger (4.0%) maintained the highest Net Promoter® Scores (NPS). The NPS asks customers to rate the likelihood of recommending the store they currently shop most often for Prescription Drugs to a friend on a scale of 0 (Not at All Likely) to 10 (Extremely Likely).

BIGresearch's Retail Ratings Reports (RRR) are available monthly for 12 major merchandise categories. They are developed from BIGresearch's monthly Consumer Intentions & Actions (CIA) Survey of over 7,500 online interviews. In addition to income breaks, the RRR are segmented by age and gender. For a sample of the January report for Prescription Drugs (all consumers and those with household incomes less than $50,000), reasons consumers shop a particular retailer and Net Promoter Scores, please click the following link: http://info.bigresearch.com/.

About BIGresearch

BIGresearch is a consumer intelligence firm providing solution-based insights of consumer behavior, present and future, in areas of products and services, retail, financial services, automotive and media. BIGresearch conducts the monthly Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey (CIA) of 7,500+ respondents and the semi-annual Simultaneous Media Survey (SIMM) of 15,000+ respondents. More information is available at http://www.bigresearch.com.

Contact Information: Contact: Chrissy Wissinger BIGresearch 450 West Wilson Bridge Road Suite 370 Worthington, Ohio 43085 (614) 846-0146