Carrefour goes back to hypermarket expansion, after focusing on supermarkets

After focusing on opening supermarkets since the beginning of the year, French retailer Carrefour will open a new hypermarket in Romania. The retailer's 23rd unit will be located in Drobeta Turnu Severin and will cover 7,100 sqm. This is the first hypermarket opened by Carrefour in the last year and a half. The opening is scheduled for Wednesday, August 25, within Severin Shopping Center. The retailer did not announce the value of the investment in this new store. The shopping center also includes a Bricostore unit, as well as other international brands such as Deichmann, New Yorker, Orsay, Takko. Carrefour has been opening supermarkets under the Carrefour Market brand since the beginning of the year. The retailer now runs 28 supermarkets, with the most recent supermarket opening being the one in Alexandria in July. In Bucharest, it already runs four such supermarkets, all of which were opened this year. Carrefour posted sales of EUR 265 million in the second quarter of the year in Romania, which was a drop of 5.8 percent compared to the same period of last year, excluding currency exchange rate impact. These are its sales in local currency. The group’s like-for-like sales were down by 7.2 percent. Its sales in the first half of the year were of EUR 534 million, down 1.5 percent on the same period of last year at constant exchange rates. The retailer’s like-for-like sales went down by 7.4 percent, but these were balanced by the group’s expansion. (In picture, Patrice Lespagnol, executive director of Carrefour Romania)