Carrefour Q1 Sales Up 12% Despite High Food Inflation in Most Markets

French multinational grocery giant Carrefour detailed its latest earnings this week, highlighting a 12% increase in sales growth in the first quarter of 2023, particularly for private label sales, across all of its key markets.

Read more: French Grocer Carrefour Pins Hopes on Digital Efforts to Boost Revenue

“In a context of very high food inflation in most of its markets, Carrefour is staying the course and maintaining strong commercial momentum, with steady market share performance in all its key countries,” Alexandre Bompard, the group’s chairman and CEO, said in a Tuesday (April 25) press release announcing the results.

Drilling down into the results shows that sales increased across all its European markets, with the lowest sales growth of 5.6% recorded in Italy while Romania performed best with a 12.5% jump in Q1 despite volume declines in the local sector.

In its home base of France, Carrefour’s sales increased by 7.1%, driven by strong food sales in hypermarkets benefiting from discounts and promotions. And although non-food sales dropped by 3.4% in the quarter, the retailer still managed to gain more than 560,000 new customers over the period in its home turf.

Back in 2021, the French supermarket chain, which has nearly 14,000 stores across more than 30 countries, unveiled its 2026 digital strategy resulting from a transformation that began in 2018.

And according to the latest results, the billion-dollar digital-first, data-centric strategy is bearing fruit, with eCommerce gross merchandise value (GMV) up by 26% in Q1 2023 driven by France and Brazil, and continued growth in its retail media activities.

Related: Initiatives Advance French Retailer Carrefour’s Billion-Dollar Digital Expansion Strategy

The retailer is also dabbling in new technologies, recently announcing that it will be leveraging ChatGPT and a computer-generated human avatar to reduce the labor cost of creating customer-facing videos as grocers worldwide leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to boost efficiency.

Also related: Carrefour’s Digital-First Expansion Brings Cashierless Tech to French Shoppers

“Our data and innovation teams are currently working on the use cases of ChatGPT and generative AI in general,” Elodie Perthuisot, the retailer’s chief eCommerce, digital transformation and data officer, wrote in a February LinkedIn post, adding that Carrefour is using customer service as a guiding principle in its AI exploration.

Overall, Carrefour is expecting its digital strategy for financial services, which also includes the launch of a new in-store buy now, pay later (BNPL) product and targeted offers for seniors, to generate additional recurring operating income of €200 million (about $201.5 million) in 2026 compared to 2021, the company previously reported.

Further reading: Carrefour Taps WhatsApp Business to Optimize French Customer Shopping Experience

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