Solid results for Carrefour: no impact from the Iran war yet

Carrefour achieved like-for-like growth of 2.2% in the first quarter of its fiscal year. The French retailer is gaining market share in its home market, while its Spanish operations are also making progress.

Market share gains in France

According to CEO Alexandre Bompard, the 2.2% growth to quarterly revenue of 21 billion euros is “solid” in a volatile geopolitical and macroeconomic context. “The Group currently sees no significant impact from the crisis in the Middle East,” he says.

In France, comparable sales rose by 1.4% to €11.139 billion. The retailer is gaining market share there at an accelerating pace, particularly in the former Cora stores, which, following their conversion to the Carrefour model, show comparable sales growth of +2.3%, compared to +0.4% for traditional hypermarkets. The Match stores also outperformed the traditional supermarkets (+0.9%) with comparable growth of 3.4%.

Strong momentum in Spain

In Spain, Carrefour has demonstrated strong commercial momentum, with comparable growth of 3.1% over the quarter in a dynamic market. Neighborhood stores performed particularly well. There was also comparable growth of 2% for hypermarkets, while e-commerce rose by 9%.

In Brazil, the macroeconomic climate remains challenging, partly due to very high interest rates. In this context, Carrefour views the slight decline of 0.8% on a comparable basis as a resilient performance.

The “other countries”—which are no longer considered part of the group’s core markets—achieved comparable growth of 9.3%, mainly thanks to strong momentum in Argentina (+23.6%), while there was also slight growth of 0.8% in Belgium. In Poland (-2.9%), the retail market continues to suffer from weak consumer confidence.