Carrefour SA ($CA)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Carrefour Q1 2026 Sales Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Matti Malige, CFO. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon to all of you, and thank you for attending the 2026 Q1 sales call. I'm here with Sebastien Valentin, Head of Investor Relations and the rest of our IR team. Before we get into the numbers, I would like to remind you that Carrefour's operations in Romania are now accounted for as discontinued operations in accordance with the IFRS 5 accounting standard. Moreover, as announced during the presentation of our Carrefour 2030 strategic plan we are today introducing our new reporting format centered on our 3 core countries, France, Spain and Brazil. Let me start with a few key highlights before we get into the details of our Q1 numbers. The group had a solid start of the year with Q1 like-for-like sales up 2.2%. This performance was driven by accelerating business trends in France and Spain. Brazil is resilient in a still challenging market, marked by this quarter by a sharp deceleration in food inflation. On the strategic front, we started the operational implementation of the Carrefour 2030 plan with numerous initiatives. In Europe, we started to see the first positive effects of Concardis, our new European buying alliance in our negotiations with major FMCG suppliers. We continue to improve the group's price competitiveness, notably in France and Spain. We kept expanding our growth formats with new convenience store openings in France and Spain. Additionally, we are pioneering a genetic commerce in France through the direct integration of Carrefour's offer into the ChatGPT interface. And finally, at Atacadao, we launched Bulnes or new entry price private label range. As you can imagine, we have been closely monitoring the crisis in the Middle East since the end of February. To date, we have seen no material impact on Carrefour's business. As far as our energy costs are concerned, let me say that our energy efficiency has significantly improved over the past few years following heavy investments, and our energy costs are more than 85% hedged for [ 2020 ]. On the basis of the satisfactory quarter, we confirm our 2026 financial targets. Let's now dive into Q1 numbers on Slide 3 with group sales. The total sales for the quarter reached EUR 21.1 billion, increasing by 2.5% at constant currency. Group like-for-like sales were up 2.2% over the quarter. The scope effect had a negative contribution of 0.8% over the quarter, which includes perimeter adjustments in Brazil, notably after the divestment of National and Bomresso stores last year. Petrol added 0.8 percentage points to growth, and the calendar effect was a positive 0.4%. Forex had an unfavorable impact on total sales growth of minus 2.1% over the quarter, mainly reflecting the depreciation of the Argentine peso. In total, reported revenue was up 0.5% in Q1. Moving on to Slide 4 with more details on the performance of France. Like-for-like sales accelerated to 1.4% in Q1 in a supportive market with food consumption holding up well, both in volume and value. All formats posted positive like-for-like growth with a marked sequential improvement compared to Q4 2025. Market share increased over the quarter. The former Kora and match stores continue to ramp up with like-for-like sales now outperforming respective legacy formats by more than 2 points reflecting the successful commercial transformation implemented throughout 2025. Carrefour continued to improve its price competitiveness with 200 private label products sold at cost and a first national wave of price cuts in March covering 500 SKUs. This was followed in April by a second national wave of price cuts again, covering more than 500 SKUs with an average price reduction of around 8%. These investments and further operating excellence are resonating with consumers leading to an improved Net Promoter Score, up 3 points in France and up 11 points in ex Coaster. Let's now turn to Spain on Slide 5. Commercial momentum remained strong in the country on the back of a steel dynamic market, both in volume and value. Like-for-like sales growth accelerated over the quarter with a 3.1% increase compared to 2% in Q4 '25. This strong performance was driven by both food, up 2.8% like-for-like with outstanding dynamics in fresh products and nonfood, up 4.3%. Carrefour continued to invest in its price leadership with a commitment to 1,000 unbeatable price products, which effectively supported consumer purchasing power and drove the NPS up by 3 points. Commercially, our omnichannel strategy is paying off with e-commerce up 9%. Finally, we successfully opened 34 new convenience stores in Spain over the quarter. Turning to Slide 6 on our operations in Brazil, which showed resilience in a still challenging environment. Q1 '26 like-for-like sales declined slightly by 0.8%. The macroeconomic environment remained challenging with a still high interest rates. Volumes remained negative at low single-digit levels in line with Q4 after the lower point was reached in Q3. Food inflation dropped to 2% in Q1 compared to 4.1% in Q4 2025, weighing on both the Cash & Carry and retail formats. Against this backdrop, Atacadao delivered continued like-for-like market share gains. The quarter was also marked by the launch of the bonus, private label with 70 inaugural SKUs available to support purchasing power, which has been well received by customers. Carrefour retail food sales were up 2.8% and recorded growing volumes. In particular, hypermarkets delivered positive like-for-like sales growth of plus 1.1%. Nonfood continued to decline as Carrefour Brasil maintained its focus on the profitability of its nonfood digital operations. Sam's Club posted a strong 5.7% like-for-like growth, driven by increases in both volume and the number of active members. Additionally, the financial services performed well with plus 15% increase in the credit portfolio. Moving on to the other countries segment on Slide 7. In Belgium, sales growth came at plus 0.8% like-for-like, improving sequentially after plus 0.2% in Q4, supported by slightly positive volumes despite a slowdown in food inflation. Poland continued to face a highly competitive local market and posted a decline of minus 2.9% in like-for-like sales a similar dynamic to Q4. And finally, in Argentina, we recorded record market share in a difficult market, still experiencing negative volumes. Let's wrap up on Slide 8. As you have understood, we are pleased with our first quarter performance, which is in line with our expectations. We delivered clear sequential top line improvement in our core European markets of France and Spain. We maintained a resilient business trend in Brazil despite navigating a still challenging macroeconomic environment that we believe will improve through the year. To date, we have seen no material impact from the conflict in the Middle East on the activities of the group. On the back of this solid start to the year, we are confirming our full year 2026 financial targets. I thank you for your attention. Sebastien and I are now happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions]. We will now go to our first question. And our first question today comes from the line of Sara Leanefrom Bank of America.

All of you actually 2, if I may, or maybe a third one. But first, back to the Ukraine time on the war we've seen, of course, a significant impact on the European consumer. So can you build some kind of similarities this year with the current environment? Or is it different this time? Kind of question linked to that is do you see the risk of consumer behavior significantly changing from now going forward in Europe mostly. So that question. The second 1 is the price investments, especially in France. So as you said, you have been investing in 2 ways, launching new products and especially low entry price products. But how you currently happy where you are? Or do you still believe that you have more to do going forward I know, of course, it's a relative game versus what your competitors are doing, but some indication here would be helpful. And the last thing, are you able to potentially comment to consensus for the group operating EBIT for 2026.

Thank you very much, Xavier. So first, on inflation, we've gone through all the various institutes forecasting inflation. The consensus points towards a marginal opt in inflation with the central scenario, suggesting inflation between 1.5%, 2% to 3% in Europe under the French government mentioned 1.9% for France for '26, and that was mentioned last week. So I think very different outlook from the Ukraine situation that you referred to or the postcode wave of fiber in patient we had, it's really a marginal uptick and so it's an inflationary environment, which should not trigger the giant asignificant change behavior. That's today, what's come back from the consensus of macroeconomic. In terms of price investments, so we have invested right through the ad cost 200 prices through 2 waves of each representing 500 products and the price decrease has been in average for each way. So this is significant. Are we happy where we are? We're happy that all the efforts done over the past few years on the assortment, private label, obviously, pricing and competitiveness in general, including royalties, what we did on foods and budgetable on fresh. Well, all the value proposition and commercial proposition of Carrefour in France, it leads us to be in a position today to be gaining market share. And this is a very important objective for us. Do we want to do more? Yes, we want to keep investing. We have put in the past that we can combine improving our competitiveness with improving our bottom line. And so that's really the road map that we draw to you when we met a few weeks ago for this Carrefour 2030 plan. Well, as far as your third question, as far as the consensus is concerned, so today, we're confirming our guidance and all our objectives and this seems consistent with the current level of the consensus.

We will now go to the next question and the next question today comes from the line of Rob Joyce from BNP Paribas.

The first one, I was wondering if you could give us an idea of the exit rates you've seen in terms of the end of March and into April in both France and Brazil. In particular, any sign of those volumes improving or food inflation picking up in Brazil? That would be really helpful. Second one, just to draw on Xavier's question there. I think at the full year presentation or the strategic Strategy Day, you gave us a relative pricing in France index. You were at 95.6% versus LeClaire at 92 million, just wanted to know if you could give us an update on that for the quarter or where you're at now. And then the final one, just in terms of the I guess the price negotiations we've seen in France, you mentioned the 1.9% inflation is that consistent with the way the negotiations finished at the end of February? And how would potential inflationary pressures be dealt with those negotiations already concluded?

Thank you, Rob. So complex question on the exit rate because you know that Easter has moved a little bit versus last year. So always hard to anticipate. I think in terms of inflation, no significant change in Europe, very stable levels. Maybe 1 point to note is in Brazil, as I mentioned in my speech, there has been a significant deceleration of food inflation in Brazil over Q1 versus Q4 notably driven by commodities, which were deflating, so negative inflation. And there has been in March and on the first few weeks of April, an uptick in terms of inflation and it seems that food inflation would be accelerating. Again, I'm being very, very cautious. It's Brazil and given the global macro uncertainty. But this is what we are seeing. I mentioned it because it's important, notably at Atacadao for B2B business. As you know, our B2B clients pay a lot of attention to the outlook to inflation and tend to refrain from buying when we have deflation, which was the case for commodities. And to the contrary, when they see inflation coming back, this is a signal for them to stock up. So we will look in detail at that in Q2. So pricing. So we have early commitment to improve our pricing. So we will detail it each year during our annual presentation and we'll make a general comment on how things have improved on a quarterly basis. This is what we did this quarter. You may have seen, but I'm insisting given your question that this triplet was published by Milan last week, I think. You will see that Carrefour both hypers and supers are improving versus the rest of the market both versus Q1 last year and versus the average of 25%, which we shared with you during our or strategic presentation. So this is notably on that basis that I said in my introduction that our competitiveness has improved over the quarter. And obviously, that does not factor the price decrease wave of April. Your third question was on inflation and what impact it could have on the discussions with our suppliers. So we just closed the negotiations with the suppliers 1.5 months ago. There is no signal at this stage. It's a marginal uptick to inflation, which is anticipated by the government. So we are really in the framework in terms of inflation that was discussed. There are a number of closes in these contracts, which organize the way negotiations could be reopened in a number of scenarios, including inflation were to accelerate. We are absolutely not in this scenario. We are far from these ranges from the unit and so we do not anticipate any reopening of the negotiations with suppliers. By the way, we have only received a handful of requests. It's just a few on very specific products. So we don't think this is a scenario today.

[Operator Instructions]. We will now go to our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Francois Dear from Kepler Siver.

Two questions on my side. I've been positively surprised by your characterization of the French market as dynamic. Could you share your view on market volume growth by category and how you see this evolving over the rest of the year? And my second question is about Cormac. The figures you are showing implies that despite negative price mix effects due to the rollout of Carrefour pricing, the volumes have been very strong. I think mid-single digit. Is it correct? And do you believe it is sustainable?

Thank you very much, Francois. So well, the market in France turned to positive volume in Q2 last year, and it's been positive since then. And that's important. That's also important for an investment case. We have kept seeing in Q1 growth in volume and also in value. So it's a bit of of inflation impacting the basket. I'm not going through this growth on a category-by-category basis. But what's important is that we noticed in Q4 that there had been some trading downs on festive products and so the growth in volume was lower in Q4 than in the previous quarters. And we said in February that this is something that was not happening anymore in January and that January. So come back to a positive growth in volume similar to what we have known in previous quarters. And so that has confirmed over the quarter. And so that's, I think, an important news that is worth sharing with you. On Kora and Match, so I share your analysis that indeed, there has been significant investments made in the competitive in the commercial proposition to customers, which has translated in inflation, obviously, investment in the real price more promotion as these formats joined the Carrefour promotions. Also more private labels, which have a lower price as we rolled out the Carrefour private label, which has a strong success. So back in Q4, we commented on positive trend on traffic. And now if you go 1 step further, I share your view with a positive dynamic in sales, so net of the pricing effect. I also mentioned in my introduction, I'm sure you plugged it NPS, which has significant increase as a consequence of the commercial offer, but also the experience and level of service in the store. So we think that there is a fundamental trend that has been created. Now we'll see how it will develop over the coming quarter. But what we can say today, this quarter is important because it's a confirmation in the sales number that the commercial model is generating more business at Kora and March.

[Operator Instructions]. We have a follow-up question. And your follow-up question comes from the line of Rob Joyce from BNP.

Yes. Sorry. Since there's not too many questions, I thought I'd jump on. In terms of the market share ex core rematch, how is that trending? I know you talked about that last year is market share? How is that ex core match? And then the second one, I don't know if you'll give us an update on this, but now I guess you're further through the Romania disposal process. Can you give us any more indication of what you expect the kind of net cash in for that for the year to be when that eventually closes or we finish the year? And then the final one, any other updates on the kind of strategic review on those noncore countries you're able to share at this stage.

Thank you, Rob. So on market share, so we're gaining market share ex Cora and March. Cora and Match are also contributing. It's a limited contribution, but it's a positive one. So worth noting, but Carrefour France generated market share gains without Cora and match. On Romania, so no significant development versus where we left you the process -- the antitrust process is still ongoing. We filed or the buyer filed antitrust a few weeks ago. And so we are still already the process is progressing per plan, and so no closing yet, but the process is progressing normally. And so I have no update to share on the numbers, specifically, it will depend on the closing date. So yes, we will update you that the numbers that we shared are still the same. As far as the third question regarding these nonstrategic countries where the situation is similar to what we said in -- to what we said in February. So the strategic review is finished. We have categorized our countries with strategic and nonstrategic countries. And as far as nonstrategic countries, we are working on improving their performance, creating more value and if we were to receive an offer at some point that reflects the fair value of these assets, the Board would consider the opportunity. So no change versus what we said in February.

Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back for closing remarks.

So many thanks for your time and attention. The team is available for any follow-up if you need that. Let me remind you of our upcoming events, which include our AGM on May 22, and our ESG Strategy Day on June 16 and our H1 results on July 23. Thank you very much. Have a nice evening.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.