Network expansion boosts Carrefour’s sales in Romania

Carrefour Romania registered €608.9 million in sales in 2006, up 39 percent year-on-year. Company officials estimate at least a 10 percent increase in net sales in 2007, due to network expansion.

Carrefour has a 10-hypermarket network, of which five in Bucharest and one each in Ploiesti, Constanta, Brasov, Iasi, and Cluj-Napoca, with the latter two opened in October 2007. The retailer plans to open new stores in Bucharest, Oradea, Pitesti, Arad, Suceava, Braila, and Iasi next year.

According to the group’s quarterly report, countries in which Carrefour has registered high growth rates are Poland, Turkey, and Greece, with 5.4 percent, 14.8 percent, and 7.6 percent, respectively. In France, the company’s most important market, sales amounted to €10.4 bln, down 2 percent from Q3 2006. At the group level, sales rose by 5.5 percent in Q3, up to €23.109 bln. In the first nine months of 2007, the French retailer’s sales rose 6 percent, to €66.7 bln.

The Carrefour group had 1,108 hypermarkets, 2,659 supermarkets, some 6,000 “hard-discount” stores, and more than 4,700 small-sized stores worldwide in September 2007.

Carrefour Romania’s main competitors on the hypermarket segment are Cora, Real Hypermarket, and Auchan. The Romanian fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market is estimated at €40 bln in 2007, up 17 percent year-on-year, according to the Deloitte Romania consultancy company.

Modern commercial networks will make up for more than 40 percent of FMCG sales by year-end, according to a study of the MEMRB Retail Tracking Services market research company. The GfK Romania market research company indicates that 27 percent of sales through chain stores may exceed 50 percent of total sales in Romania by 2010. In Poland, where the ascension of super and hypermarkets began early, 45 percent of FMCG sales were made though such networks as far back as 2002.