Carrefour said revenue growth accelerated in the first quarter as hypermarket sales in its core French market turned slightly positive, suggesting the retailer was making progress with its recovery plan. Sales reached 20.016 billion euros ($22.4 billion), broadly in line with the median of analysts' estimates for sales of 20.096 billion in a poll for Reuters compiled by Infront Data.
Growth accelerated to 2.7 percent on a like-for-like basis, up from 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018. Elsewhere in Europe, Spain, Italy and Belgium remained in negative territory while Brazil - Carrefour's second-biggest market after France - put in a robust performance.
Carrefour, which is Europe's largest retailer, is in the midst of a five-year plan it launched in January 2018 to cut costs and jobs, boost E-commerce investment and seek a partnership in China with Tencent. Carrefour added on Wednesday that it was sticking to those targets in its strategy plan. The plan is aimed at helping Carrefour boost profits and revenues, and tackle competition from Amazon.
It also entails expanding into convenience stores to reduce its exposure to large hypermarket stores, and on having a greater focus on organic products and private-labels. The first quarter performance reflected a stronger performance in France, where CEO Alexandre Bompard has made reviving flagging sales at large hypermarkets a priority.
The hypermarkets, which make 51 percent of Carrefour sales in France, have been struggling to win back customers amid fierce price competition from more nimble rivals such as Leclerc and Amazon.
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