Quezi

Phamacy (photo by Clean Wal-Mart CC-BY)

There are more than 56,000 pharmacies in the United States. The NACDS  reports that there are over 39,000 pharmacies operated by traditional chain pharmacy companies, supermarkets and mass merchants. In addition there are  nearly 17,000 independent pharmacies. (1)

Walgreens and CVS dominate the drug store chain market with the largest number of stores and the highest sales.

According to Chain Drug Review, the top 10 drug store chains (1) by store count are:

1. Walgreens  – 6,971
2. CVS Caremark  – 6,308
3. Rite Aid  – 4,922
4. Health Mart  – 1,961
5. Medicine Shoppe International  – 1,303
6. Longs  – 526
7. Duane Reade  – 245
8. USA Drug  – 150
9. Aurora Pharmacy  – 129
10. Kerr Drug  – 102

The top 10 drug chains by dollar volume (2) are:

1. Walgreens  – $53.76 bil.
2. CVS  – 45.09 bil.
3. Rite Aid  – 24.33 bil.
4. Longs  – 5.26 bil.
5. Health Mart  – 3.90 bil.
6. Medicine Shoppe International  – 2.48 bil.
7. Duane Reade  – 1.69 bil.
8. Marc Glassman  – 1.13 bil.
9. USADrug  – 906.7 mil.
10. Kinney Drugs  – 666.9 mil.

Check out the number of pharmacies in Canada here.

(1) Store count
(2) Dollar volume