Despite falling store sales again, French retail group Casino is seeing profitability improve. The retailer is doing very well online.
Successful partnerships
On its French home market, Casino saw its comparable sales drop by 6.4%. The retailer is strong in the proximity store segment with banners such as Monoprix and Franprix, stores that did well during the first lockdown and now have to contend with a difficult basis for comparison. Supermarkets (Casino) and hypermarkets (Géant) also saw their sales fall sharply, partly as a result of French corona virus measures that kept the non-food departments closed. But that does not explain everything: in two years time, the hypermarkets of the group lost 24% of their turnover, calculated French trade magazine Linéaires.
Nevertheless, management mainly points out the bright spots in the figures for the first quarter. Online food sales increased by 38%, partly due to successful partnerships with Ocado and Amazon. Also the e-commerce platform Cdiscount experienced good growth. The operating result increased from 9 million euro to 40 million euro, partly due to cost-cutting operations. The group is considering raising capital for its energy division GreenYellow and for Cdiscount. The heavily indebted retailer also expects a lot from its recent alliance with sector colleague Intermarché: both retailers want to force better purchasing conditions from their suppliers together, and are also joining forces to develop digital services and private labels.
