Carrefour entered the local market in 2001 when it opened the Militari hypermarket, the first such store in Romania. But modern retail really began five years earlier, when Germany’s Metro Cash& Carry tapped the cash & carry store format, dedicated to companies.
After ten years on the market, Carrefour has 23 hypermarkets with nearly EUR45 million sales per store, almost EUR1 million less than in 2001, when there was only the Militari store. Moreover, the French company’s sales per store are now half what they were in the boom period between 2005 and 2007, when they ranged between EUR70 and 80 million per store.
The sales decline can be explained both by the dwindling consumer spending during difficult economic times, and by heightened competition, with four other retailers present on the hypermarket segment: Cora, Auchan, Kaufland and Real.