Carrefour on track, but Belgium performs poorly

Carrefour looks to the future with confidence despite a difficult context: the retailer gained market share in its main markets in the first quarter of 2022, but Belgium remains the weakest link in the group.

Market share gains

In the first quarter of this year, Carrefour realised a comparable sales growth of 3.4 %, to 20.2 billion euros. With this, the group did slightly better than most analysts had expected. On the French home market, the retailer struggled – the hypermarkets declined 1.1 % – but this was offset by strong performances in Spain and Brazil.

The group also saw progress in Italy, Poland and Romania. In Belgium, however, comparable sales fell by as much as 7%. Carrefour points out that competition in the Belgian market is fierce and that the performance in the first quarter was very strong in the past two years, making the basis of comparison difficult.

Cutting costs

E-commerce sales rose 10% to a new record, mainly thanks to strong growth in home deliveries. The media platform Carrefour Links, which allows advertisers to personalise their communication based on the customer’s purchasing behaviour, is also experiencing increasing success, with now 235 active customers.

CEO Alexandre Bompard is confident that the group will achieve its strategic objectives. The retailer wants to save more than 900 million euros in costs this year, while safeguarding the purchasing power of its customers in a context of high inflation, through a stronger focus on private labels, promotions and loyalty programmes.