Carrefour Q3: France performance limits results | Progresiv
Carrefour has reported third quarter results saying gross sales rose 1.5%, at constant exchange rates including petrol, to 20.2 billion euros. Group like-for-like sales, excluding petrol and calendar effects, rose 2.3%. While there were positive elements, with strong growth in Poland supported by a return to like-for-like growth in Spain, these were offset by the retailer’s continuing challenges in France and especially at its hypermarkets in the country. 
Total sales in France fell by 3.2% to 9.8 billion euros, including VAT, while like-for-like sales fell by 0.9%. Carrefour said food sales during the quarter were stable, while non-food sales fell by 6.7% in like-for-like terms, underlining the challenges being faced by the category.
By channel, the retailer said like-for-likes fell by 3.6% at its hypermarkets. The stores’ performance was affected by the strong basis of comparison with Q3 2018, the ‘reduction of promotional intensity, investments in EDLP, development of Carrefour-branded products, reduction of under-productive non-food sales area and discontinuation of certain categories’.
The picture was more positive elsewhere, with like-for-like growth of 1.5% at its supermarkets, which was driven by a ‘good performance over strong comps’ and its convenience stores, where like-for-like sales were up by 2.2%. At the latter it noted the ‘good momentum on already strong comps’, while an expansion plan was ‘well under way’, which was aided by ‘significant achievements in organic and food ecommerce’ which are both strategic priorities.
Total sales were up by 0.5% to 5.8 billion euros, with like-for-like sales up by 0.4% across its five other European markets. The retailer said the performance was the ‘best like-for-like growth since the launch of the Carrefour 2022 plan’.
While Poland stood out in numerical terms, with like-for-like sales rising by 6.2%, due to a ‘strong customer focus’, it was the retailer’s return to like-for-like growth in Spain, where it registered a 1.5% increase, that is the most pleasing for it. Carrefour said the rise in like-for-like sales in Spain, ‘reflected the strong focus on customer satisfaction’.
Elsewhere Carrefour saw ‘continued growth’ in Romania, where like-for-like sales were up by 2.8%, while there were continuing challenges in Belgium, like-for-likes fell 2.8%, and Italy, where like-for-like sales contracted by 2.3%. Carrefour described the latter two countries as being difficult and declining markets.
In Latin America Carrefour reported total sales were up by 12.8% in like-for-like terms, with its operations in Brazil seeing like-for-like growth of 3.8% and in Argentina the growth, in the same terms, was up by 58.7%. (retailanalysis.igd.com)
