Carrefour has reiterated its plans to reduce its hypermarket sales area by 350,000 within the next two years, in line with its Carrefour 2022 strategy.
However, the retailer has a long way to go to achieve this goal, having reduced hypermarket space by just 133,000 square metres as of June of this year.
At end-2019, the total reduction in hypermarket space across the group was 115,000 square metres.
Mixed Performance
The group reiterated its goals as it announced its second-quarter results, which saw the business report an overall 6.3% like-for-like sales increase.
In April, the group said that its hypermarket portfolio took a hit (-4.6% like-for-like) due to increased lockdown measures making its convenience (+19.0% like-for-like) and supermarkets (+8.3% like-for-like) more attractive to shoppers.
In May and June, however, the hypermarket channel staged a comeback, growing by 8.0% like-for-like, Carrefour said, and experiencing 'sustained activity' during the period.
'[Hypermarkets] played their role after lockdown (price, social distancing, promotion), even if they were penalised in some countries by a slow recovery in shopping mall traffic,' Carrefour said. 'Carrefour continued to invest in customer satisfaction and purchasing power.'
As well as France, Carrefour said that its hypermarket businesses in Spain and Belgium also performed well in the quarter, while in Brazil, the repositioning of its hypermarket business enabled 'significant market share gains'.
As of March 31, Carrefour operated a total of 1,202 hypermarkets, including 248 in France and 453 in the rest of Europe.
Last week, the group announced plans to open its first hypermarket in Andorra, alongside Groupe Pyrénées, this coming September.
Convenience Focus
The scaling back of the group's hypermarket operation is being matched by a more pronounced focus on convenience, with the group seeking to open 2,700 new convenience stores by 2022.
Since the transformation plan was announced, it has opened 1,563 convenience outlets, including 521 in the first half of this year.
"The further improvement in our results this half, the growing satisfaction of our customers, our ability to seize opportunities to create value - all these achievements further strengthen my confidence in the success of our group," commented Alexandre Bompard, Carrefour chairman and CEO.
"We reaffirm or enhance the objectives that we have set for ourselves, both financial and extra-financial."
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
