French group Carrefour, the second largest grocery retailer in the world behind Walmart, has revealed that sales for the third quarter (Q3) of 2011 remained relatively flat, rising slightly by 0.3 per cent to €22.8bn.
Growth was achieved after positive performances in the retailer's emerging markets, with Latin American sales rising 9.9 per cent year-on-year, While Asian sales climbed 4 per cent, boosted by expansion in China.
These markets helped offset weaker performances in the group's home market of France, as well as certain other European operations.
Like-for-like French hypermarket sales dropped 4.4 per cent on the same period of 2010, although Carrefour reported that its convenience formats had performed well with sales up 17 per cent.
In Spain, hypermarket sales dropped 3.7 per cent, although this was an improvement on the 4.9 per cent fall on the second quarter, although there were good signs in Belgium where sales jumped 2.6 per cent.
Other European markets saw sales decline 3.6 per cent on 2010, mainly the result of struggles in the Greek market, Carrefour reported.
As a result of the third-quarter results, Carrefour lowered its full-year guidance from a 15 per cent reduction on 2010 to a 15-20 per cent drop in sales.
'Carrefour posted broadly stable sales in the third quarter in worsening economic conditions, notably impacting discretionary spending,' said Lars Olofsson, group chairman and CEO. 'Our sales continued to grow in emerging markets, with a solid performance in Latin America, particularly Brazil, and continued expansion in China.
'Overall, in Western Europe, our sales held up reasonably well. In France, where our like-for-like sales declined, we started to decisively implement our action plan ('Reset') to rebuild momentum in our hypermarkets. Faced with an increasingly uncertain environment, we are, as a matter of prudence, broadening the range of our 2011 Current Operating Income guidance to a decline of 15-20 per cent.'
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