Carrefour, which recently unveiled a new hypermarket concept, called Carrefour Planet, plans to convert or remodel 500 stores by early 2013 in France, Italy, Belgium and Greece. The remodelled stores will aim at creating a new shopping experience for customers. This was revealed by the retailer at Investor Day in Lyon.
Carrefour CEO Lars Olofsson said, “Over the next five years, Carrefour expects a sharp improvement in revenues and profitability, thanks to additional sales from its reinvented stores, strong footprint in key growth markets and significant savings from efficiency gains.”
Carrefour expects the reinvention of the hypermarket to result in an incremental sales growth of 18 per cent over the 2010-2015 period.
Implementing and rolling out the new hypermarket concepts will require a total capital expenditure of around €1,500 bn. The reinvention of the hypermarket is part of the retailer’s 2010-2012 Transformation Plan, which is expected to yield gains totalling €4.5 billion, mainly in France, Spain, Italy and Belgium.
“After inventing the hypermarket in the 1960s, Carrefour is creating an entirely new shopping experience with the launch of Carrefour Planet. With the roll out of the reinvented hypermarkets in Western Europe, Carrefour’s Transformation Plan is now fully up and running, delivering strong initial results,” Olofsson said.
During the Investor Day, Carrefour also organised site visits to two pilot Carrefour Planet stores in Ecully and Venissieux that are among the five pilots conducted over the past months in France, Spain and Belgium.
— IndiaRetailing Bureau
