In just nine months, Romania became one of the countries whereCarrefour witnessed the steepest sales declines, in stores morethan one year old, after in 2008 it led in the ranking of thebiggest organic growth rates globally together with Argentina andBrazil.
The French retailer registered 809m-euro sales in the first ninemonths on the Romanian market, with 22 hypermarkets and 24supermarkets operating at the end of the period, according tocompany data.
In the past year, during which the company has further expandedat a fast rate adding 12 stores overall, of which 7 hypermarkets,consolidated sales in euros have started following a downward trendfor the first time since the company entered the Romanian market,in 2002.
Sales in euros dropped by 1.2% in the first nine months of theyear compared with a year ago, with the decline in CarrefourRomania's stores more than one year old amounting to 8%, accordingto the group's financial report. Sales in RON are still rising,though, with an increase of almost 15% being reported for theabove-mentioned period, showing that network expansion could notwipe out the effect of RON decline against the euro.
Carrefour is the first food retailer operating in Romania thatreleases data on sales generated in the first nine months of 2009.Last year, Carrefour was the leader of the domestic hypermarketmarket, going beyond the 1bn-euro threshold in terms of sales forthe first time.
The financial report also shows that unlike in previous years,the Romanian subsidiary leads in 2009 in the ranking of Europeancompanies with the biggest sales declines in stores more than oneyear old. By comparison, Carrefour Romania last year boasted thefastest organic growth rate of sales in Europe, of 6.5%. At grouplevel, Carrefour reached 70.2bn-euro sales in the first nine monthsof the year, down 2.3% from the same period of 2008.
This year, Carrefour Romania gave up its travel agency unit ithad brought domestically in mid-2007. This year, too, Carrefour wasthe first hypermarket chain that cut its sales area by giving upone of its locations of Braila. Instead, it resumed the expansionof former Artima network.
Carrefour Romania plans to add three new stores to itssupermarket network by yearend.
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