Growing Carrefour loses France to E.Leclerc

Taking
hits in South of Europe

With a
turnover of 86.6 billion dollar Carrefour performs better than
predicted by financial analysts, who predicted a number closer to 79
billion. In France, still responsible for the biggest part of the
company’s sales, Carrefour saw a small rise by 0.1% to 39.53
billion euro. This was possible because of the sales in gas stations
and a slight improvement of sales in the hyper markets.

In the
rest of Europe Carrefour took a hit in sales of 2.5% to 23.67 billion
euro, mainly because of the poor results in Spain (-6.8%) and Italy
(-6.5%). Without strong performances in Belgium (+3.8% all-in and a
total revenue of 1.19 billion euro) and Poland-Turkey-Romania (+3.8%
and a total revenue of 1.26 billion euro), the drop in sales would
have been even bigger.

Stable China, booming Brazil

Carrefour
performs best in Latin-America (+4.8%) and Asia (+10%), reaching
total sales volumes of 16.14 billion euro and 7.22 billion euro
respectively. Brazil earned a turnover growth of over 10%,
making it Carrefour’s biggest market after France.

China
saw Carrefour’s drop stabilised: after a drop of 6.1% in the third
quarter, sales there fell by only 3.1% in the fourth. In the meantime
new Carrefour stores are popping up like mushrooms in China, with
seven new stores that opened up in the last few weeks.

Slower hypermarket decline saves French results

In
France the performances of the hypermarkets are crucial for
Carrefour, as they are responsible for almost a quarter of their
total sales. Although they are still dropping in sales, the previous rapid decline seems to have been stopped. In the first quarter of
2012 sales had dropped by 5.8%, 5.7% in the second and 3.3 in the
third quarter, but in the fourth quarter that number had shrunk to a
loss of 2%.

The
group’s new policy of low prices all year round seems to be
successful and has been put into higher gear with the appointment of
new CEO Georges Plassat.

E.Leclerc races towards #1 spot in France

When
compared to its French competitors the story of Carrefour has two
completely different sides. On the one hand they are doing better
than Casino, which saw its sales in France drop by 2.2% to 4.7
billion euro, where Carrefour France had a rise of 0.6% to 10.5
billion euro. Over the entire year Carrefour France rose by 0.1% to
39.53 billion euro, while Casino lost 0.8% to reach only 18.4 billion
euro.

On
the other hand Carrefour is facing stiff competition from discount
chain E.Leclerc, who had an excellent 2012. Leclerc’s sales rose by 7.5%
to 43.7 billion euro, including gas stations. Excluding the gas
stations, the turnover is 34.9 billion euro, still a rise of 7%. This
is mainly due to its aggressive low prices strategy: E.Leclerc is by
far the cheapest chain in France. According to the company they
currently hold a market share of 18.6% in France. In 2013 they expect
sales to rise another 4 to 6%.   (YVL)