Carrefour said revenue growth accelerated in the first quarter as hypermarket sales in its core French market turned slightly positive, suggesting the retailer was making progress with its recovery plan.
Sales reached €20.016 billion ($22.4 billion), broadly in line with the median of analysts' estimates for sales of €20.096 billion in a poll for Reuters compiled by Infront Data.
Growth accelerated to 2.7% on a like-for-like basis, up from 1.9% in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Regional Performance
Elsewhere in Europe, Spain, Italy and Belgium remained in negative territory while Brazil - Carrefour's second-biggest market after France - put in a robust performance.
Carrefour, which is Europe's largest retailer, is in the midst of a five-year plan it launched in January 2018 to cut costs and jobs, boost e-commerce investment and seek a partnership in China with Tencent.
The plan is aimed at helping Carrefour boost profits and revenues, and tackle competition from Amazon.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
