French retail giant Carrefour yesterday announced an increase in turnover of 1 per cent for the fourth quarter. Turnover reached €26bn, according to the company, in line with market expectations.
Compared with the previous year, hypermarket sales in France fell by 2.5 per cent, an improvement on the 5.1 per cent drop experienced in the third quarter.
Although analysts expected the group's supermarkets to maintain the growth seen in the third quarter (6 per cent), Carrefour recorded an increase of just 3.6 per cent in France.
Meanwhile, the company's hard discount stores saw sales in the French market fall by 7.3 per cent compared with the previous year, a similar drop to that experienced in the third quarter.
In the rest of western Europe (Spain, Italy and Belgium), sales fell by just 4.5 per cent compared with 6.5 per cent in the third quarter.
As for Asia, the situation is improving more rapidly than the market anticipated, with a drop in turnover of just 0.4 per cent compared with a fall of 6.4 per cent for the previous quarter. The company saw sales in China rise by 3.1 per cent, compared with a drop of 3.6 per cent in the third quarter.
The group's Latin American operations continued to perform well, according to Carrefour, with turnover rising by 4.9 per cent following a similar increase the previous quarter.
Overall, Carrefour recorded a fall in turnover of 1.4 per cent to some €96.2bn.
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