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Presentation of the Carrefour group
Company profile
Company
profile
As a multi-local, multi-format and multi-channel retailer, Carrefour employs
more than 380,000 people
around
the world. With
nearly 12,300 stores
in
more than 35 countries
, the Group generated total sales of
€104.4 billion under Group banners in 2015. As a partner for daily life, Carrefour welcomes
13 million
customers
around the world every day. Through its initiatives, Carrefour is committed to sustainable and
responsible trade. The Group’s global approach to CSR is based on three pillars: combatting all forms of waste,
protecting biodiversity and providing support to the company’s partners.
In the various geographies in which it operates – in France, in Europe, in Latin America, in Asia and in other
countries through international partnerships – the Carrefour group has rolled out a variety of formats and channels:
hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, cash & carry stores, and food and non-food e-commerce sites.
In 2015, total sales under Group banners, including fuel, totalled
€104.4 billion
, up 4.5% at constant exchange
rates. Excluding fuel, the Group’s consolidated sales including VAT stood at €86.3 billion, up 5.3% at constant
exchange rates. Net sales totalled €76.9 billion. At year-end 2015, the Group had 12,296 stores under its banners,
including 1,481 hypermarkets, 3,462 supermarkets, 7,181 convenience stores and 172 cash & carry stores.
The history of the Carrefour group
1.1
The
Carrefour
Supermarchés
company was born on July
11, 1959 On June
15, 1963, Carrefour inaugurated the concept of the
following a meeting between Marcel Fournier, proprietor of a novelty
hypermarket in France, opening a store in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois
store in Annecy, and the Badin-Defforey family business, a grocery
in the Paris region. This first hypermarket offered an enormous choice
wholesaler in Lagnieu. Both families came from an entrepreneurial
of products on a self-service basis and at low prices. It had a surface
background. They hit upon a new idea: self-service, French-style, that
area of 2,500 sq.m with 400 free parking spaces. This innovative
they tried out in a 200-sq.m store. Their success was immediate, and concept, which was a response to the growth of mass consumption in
they soon had to expand. So, in June
1960, an 850-sq.m supermarket
France, was a real success. Another supermarket was opened in the
was founded at the crossroads of Avenue Parmelan and Avenue André Villeurbanne town centre, in the Lyon suburbs, in March
1964, and
Theuriet in Annecy, followed in April
1963 by a second store in was later expanded into a hypermarket. The next store, opened in
Cran-Gevrier in the Annecy suburbs.
Vénissieux in 1966, was a hypermarket with a sales area of 10,000
square metres. This fully air-conditioned store offered, for the first
Did you know?
time, a selection of furniture and large household appliances, and laid
the foundations for the modern hypermarket, featuring “everything
The first supermarket was located at the junction of five
under one roof” with 20,000 products.
streets and roads. That’s why this revolutionary new
The Group’s supplier listing centre, the
Société
d’achats
modernes
French-style self-service store was named Carrefour, the
(Samod), was established in 1967 to supply the new hypermarkets
French word for crossroads.
being opened by Carrefour: Chartres and Anglet in 1967,
Annecy-Brogny, Dijon Quétigny and Créteil in 1968, and then Bourges,
At the same time, SARL Promodis (later to become Promodès)
Chambéry, Grenoble, Mérignac and Nevers in 1969.
emerged in 1961, headed by two Normandy families with a
background in the wholesale trade, the Duval-Lemonniers and the
Halleys. The company opened its first supermarket in 1962 in
Mantes-la-Ville.
1966
Vénissieux
hypermarket opening
1960
First Carrefour
supermarket in Annecy
1963
Customer in the first
Carrefour hypermarket in
Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois
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2015 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT