Sales figures for the world’s second largest retailer, France’s Carrefour, were less than inspiring as the company announced them yesterday.
Over the whole of 2008, sales rose 5.7 per cent to €97.56bn, but in the final quarter of the year the retailer said it only saw 0.7 per cent sales growth to €25.74bn, an impact of the worsening global economy.
Carrefour said the outlook for the coming quarter would not bring any relief, reported Reuters.
“This is the toughest economic environment we have seen in recent memory. Christmas was not as festive as usual,” said Chief Financial Officer Eric Reiss, adding poor sales figures were not limited to Carrefour.
“One shouldn’t draw any hasty conclusions from December trends, and early signs of our post-Christmas promotions are encouraging,” he said.
“But we don’t expect to see any significant improvement compared to the trends we witnessed in Q4. This coming quarter will be tough.”
Sales at stores open longer than a year fell 1.3 per cent in Q4, the company said, with declines of 5.1 per cent in Asia, 2.4 per cent in France and 3.5 per cent in the rest of Europe.
Latin America was Carrefour’s best performer, with sales growing 11.1 per cent in the fourth quarter.
Carrefour’s new chief executive Lars Olofsson, who stepped in at the start of this month from a position at Nestle SA, is being watched by some analysts for efforts to turn the company around, according to Reuters.
“Carrefour can and should further improve its performance,” Mr Olofsson said in a statement.
The French retailer employs 490,000 people in over 15,000 stores in 30 countries, making it the largest global retailer after US giant Wal-Mart.
