Carrefour

Sector: Food, drug and mass retailers Countries of operation: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain and Taiwan Key product categories: Apparel, consumer electronics, food and beverage, fuel, general merchandise, and health and beauty Annual Metrics [caption id="attachment_150441" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Fiscal year ends on December 31[/caption]   Summary Founded in 1959 and headquartered in Massy, France, Carrefour is a French multinational retailer that operates a network of cash-and-carry outlets, convenience stores, e-commerce stores, hypermarkets and supermarkets. It offers apparel, consumer electronics, food and beverage, fuel, general merchandise, and health and beauty products. Carrefour operates under various banners including 8 à Huit, Carrefour Bairro, Carrefour City, Carrefour Easy, Carrefour Express, Carrefour Market and Supeco. The company’s business operations span across Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. As of March 31, 2022, the company operates 8,618 convenience stores, 3,595 supermarkets, 1,141 hypermarkets, 444 cash-and-carry outlets and 116 Supeco discount stores. Company Analysis Coresight Research insight: With a multi-format store portfolio and a robust omnichannel network, Carrefour is one of the leading grocery retailers in the world. Carrefour entered the Covid-19 crisis bolstered by two years of development under its “Carrefour 2022” plan, initially launched in 2018. Its Carrefour 2022 plan proved timely, as initiatives such as improving price competitiveness and boosting digital infrastructure meant the retailer was well-placed to withstand changes wrought by the pandemic. Although Carrefour has a global footprint, its core French market (which accounted for almost half of its sales in fiscal year 2021) remains highly competitive. Its main rival, E.Leclerc, remains the largest supermarket chain in France, according to Kantar Worldpanel. Additionally, hard discounters Aldi and Lidl have been steadily expanding their footprint in France over the last few years and we could see the competition in Carrefour’s largest market intensify, including in e-commerce.

Tailwinds	Headwinds
Wide geographical presence enables significant economies of scale, boosting price competitiveness Multiformat store strategy catering to diverse customer segments Strong organic product portfolio with the acquisitions of specialist banners Bioazur and Bio c’ Bon in 2020 Opportunities to leverage international brand equity in emerging economies	Heightened competition from other supermarket chains and discounters such as Aldi and Lidl High financial debt of €2.6 billion ($2.8 billion) as of December 31, 2021

  Strategy Carrefour is strategically focused on driving its performance through a five-year transformation plan called Carrefour 2022, first introduced in 2018. The key elements of this strategy include: 1. Simplify Carrefour’s organizational structure

• Simplify to make its organizational structure more flexible, without compromising on customer service.

2. Invest to grow

• Make investments to improve the company’s price competitiveness and productivity.

3. Expand online solutions and omnichannel capabilities

• Develop a benchmark omnichannel universe by unifying stores with e-commerce operations.

4. Redesign Carrefour’s food offering

• Refocus food lines through by investing in private-label and organic products and strengthen its supply chain requirements.

Revenue Breakdown (FY21)   Company Developments

Date	Development
May 7, 2022	Carrefour unveils the first NFBees, NFTs that fund the protection of bees, on the Sandbox platform.
April 13, 2022	Carrefour announces that it will use blockchain technology with its private label organic products to provide consumers with more transparency regarding product origin, quality and organic certification.
March 9, 2022	Carrefour launches its first distribution hub dedicated exclusively to online food orders in Madrid, Spain.
October 7, 2021	Carrefour announces that it has partnered with robotic smart-locker provider Delipop to open robotics-powered collection points in Paris.
May 31, 2021	Carrefour Italia announces a partnership with Filiera Italia, an association that promotes agricultural products made in Italy, to focus on common values including advocating for local products and sustainability.
May 3, 2021	Carrefour and Uber Eats announce the extension of their partnership in France by signing up nearly 1,000 stores, with plans to expand the range of products available for delivery to around 5,000 by the end of the year.
March 31, 2021	Carrefour announces the opening of a new Supeco store in Saint-Maxim, France, taking the discount banner’s total store count to eight in the country.
March 24, 2021	Carrefour Brasil enters into an agreement with Walmart and Advent International to acquire Brazilian supermarket chain Grupo Big.
January 17, 2021	Carrefour and Canadian supermarket chain Alimentation Couche-Tard end merger talks but state that they are exploring options to form an operational alliance.
November 23, 2020	Supeco, the soft-discount brand of Carrefour, launches an e-commerce website, which is focused on nonfood products in France.
November 4, 2020	Carrefour strengthens its French e-commerce website by adding nonfood offerings, following the pandemic-induced temporary closure of “nonessential” sections of its hypermarkets.
November 2, 2020	Carrefour acquires the organic supermarket chain Bio c’ Bon to strengthen its presence in the French organic food market.
October 30, 2020	Carrefour announces the sale of a 60% stake in its Market Pay payments platform to private equity firm AnaCap Financial Partners.
Oct 13, 2020	Carrefour acquires organic products distributor Bioazur through its subsidiary So.bio.
Sep 18, 2020	Carrefour announces that it has eliminated 1,100 tonnes of plastic from its private-label brand packaging since 2019.
Sep 16, 2020	Carrefour partners with Canadian e-grocery management solutions provider Food-X Technologies to improve its e-commerce productivity and profitability.
Aug 27, 2020	Carrefour enters an agreement to acquire 172 stores from Spanish supermarket chain Supersol.
Jun 30, 2020	Carrefour Poland announces a trial of a new contactless payment service, Tank & Go, at its petrol filling stations in Warsaw and Krakow.

  Management Team

• Alexandre Bompard—Chairman and CEO
• Matthieu Malige—Executive Director Finance and Management
• Elodie Perthuisot—Executive Director E-Commerce, Data and Digital Transformation

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Source: Company reports