The Carrefour sign could soon disappear from Italy. The French giant would be considering leaving the tricolor market deemed scarcely profitable and would be ready to yielding their supermarkets To other GDO chains in our country, such as the German Lidl, but also Conad and Esselunga.
According to the rumors of the German press, some of the competitors would have already presented manifestations of interest to the transalpine chain, which would have started the negotiations to give in the Italian business.
The hypotheses of farewell to Italy of Carrefour
Carrefour’s farewell rumors were reported by the German weekly Lebensmittel Zeitungciting internal anonymous sources for several European retailers.
Asked by The Sole 24 hoursthe brands that would be involved in the sale of the French giant’s offices did not want to comment on the rumors.
After the farewell over the years in Greece and Colombia (2012), China (2019) and Taiwan (2022), in recent months the chain has also abandoned Jordan and Oman, while in November 2024 the Financial Times referred to the intention by the company of disengage From markets considered not central in their business, such as Belgium, Poland, Romania and, in fact, Italy.
According to Mediobanca’s latest report on productivity In the organized large -scale distribution sector, Carrefour Italia scores an average of sales per square meter widely lower than the national figure5,716 euros compared to 7,770 euros.
Performance that brought the company’s tricolor branch to record a drop of 2.6% With the same perimeter of the stores on revenues, at 4.18 billion.
These numbers make the Italian market a context from poor profitabilityin which for Carrefour it would not be better to continue investing.
The data relating to the closure of the 2024 financial year in our country reflect the policy of rationalization of the CEO Christophe Rabatel, who decided for the sale of 4 hypermarkets and the conversion of 12 minimarket in franchise.
Always according to Mediobanca estimates, between 2019 and 2023 Carrefour marked losses in Italy for 874.2 million euroswho pushed the top of the giant to make more and more use of the franchise concession to an entrepreneur affiliated with their points of sale, of any size.
The possible sales
If the indiscretions collected in the large retailers were to find confirmation, the French giant could definitively get rid of supermarkets and hyper in the whole peninsula, which could be sold in lots to other chains permanently in the area.
The different competing signs would be interested in absorbing points of sale to be integrated directly to their network, but in other cases they would be ready to acquire all the formats of the French giant, from those of proximity to supermarkets and hypermarkets.
Also according to the hypotheses circulating in the sector, it would be in particular one the company willing to focus everything on Carrefour Expressthanks to the capillarity in metropolitan areas, and smaller exercises, in order to land in sales basins where it is not present at the moment.
