Carrefour has not missed its start

French retail group Carrefour has published decent quarterly results: turnover grew 6.2 % thanks to its international activities. Most European countries performed well, while Belgium’s negative results were “because of a marketing decision”.

“Multi-format approach is working”

Carrefour’s turnover in the first quarter of 2017 was 21.3 billion euro, with growth largely thanks to increased food sales, positive omnichannel results and a strong international performance.

According to the company, these excellent results show that its multi-format approach is working and that it has a balanced country portfolio. The retailer points out that there was an unfavourable calendar effect, because Easter is part of this year’s second quarter and that it was part of last year’s first quarter. To that end, Carrefour maintains its full-year forecast, which is to get 3 to 5 % turnover growth.

No Belgian problem

The group’s Latin American performance, particularly in Brazil, was very good, but Asia remains a troublesome market for Carrefour. Results are mixed in Europe: French hypermarkets face plenty of competition and have lost ground ever so slightly (- 0.8 %). Supermarkets (+ 1.1 %) and convenience stores (+ 5.5 %) performed much better. Like-for-like food sales grew everywhere (France + 1.3 %, Italy + 1.6 %, Spain + 0.3 %) except for Belgium (- 1.8 %).

“The drop was because of our decision not to repeat our “free shopping cart” promotion this year”, Carrefour Belgium spokesperson, Baptiste Van Outryve, said. The promotion does help boost turnover, but also costs a lot of money. He emphasized there was no reason for concern about the Belgian performance. “On the contrary, there have been several good promotions in our second quarter, including the stickers to celebrate 25 years of Disneyland Paris.”