Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Carrefour Q3 2025 sales conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our speaker today, Matthieu Malige, CFO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon to all of you, and thank you for attending our 2025 Q3 sales call. I'm here with Sébastien Valentin, Head of Investor Relations, and our IR team. Before we get into the numbers, I would like to remind you that Carrefour's operations in Italy are now accounted for as discontinued operations in accordance with the IFRS 5 accounting standard. As a reminder, the key restated figures for 2024 and H1 2025 were posted a few weeks ago and are available in the finance section of our website. Let me start with a few key highlights before we get into the details of our third-quarter sales. This quarter, we delivered positive like-for-like growth across France, Europe, and Latin America, resulting in the total group sales up 2.1% on a like-for-like basis.
That performance was clearly driven by food sales, up 2.9% like-for-like over the quarter at group level. Throughout the quarter, we continued to see dynamic markets in Europe, notably in France and Spain. In France, the positive momentum initiated in the second quarter is confirmed, driven by growth in both volume and value, despite a demanding comparison base linked to the Olympic Games in July and August 2024. FMCG market share is stable over the quarter, with a sequential improvement that I will comment on in a minute, notably in view of the latest data released this afternoon by World Pioneer by Numerator, ex-Kantar. Over the quarter, Carrefour legacy stores have continued on a positive trend across all formats, in particular in hypermarkets and proximity. French hypermarkets, excluding CORA, reaped the benefits of two years of price investments and improved operating excellence. Q3 like-for-like at +0.5% is similar to Q2.
Food like-for-like even accelerated in Q3 at +1.7% versus 1.2% in Q2. In Spain, the food commercial trend is still strong and similar to the one of Q2. On the other hand, in Brazil, we observe a general slowdown and negative volumes in the cash and carry market since May, as high interest rates are affecting the purchasing power of customers. Atacadão outperforms its market again. The group also sustained a robust performance in e-commerce, with GMV up 18% year-on-year in Q3. In parallel, Carrefour continued to progress on its strategic review with a few initiatives during the quarter. Firstly, the disposal of Carrefour Italy is progressing and is expected to close by the end of the year. Secondly, Concordis has successfully launched its international expansion with the integration of the German group RTG International, bringing the alliance's total revenue to over EUR 125 billion.
Finally, the group has refinanced EUR 1.4 billion out of the EUR 1.5 billion of BRL-denominated debt. The refinancing of the remaining EUR 100 million is currently underway. As already mentioned, we estimate this refinancing will deliver a positive impact of EUR 100 million in net free cash flow and net income for the full year 2026, and EUR 20 million-EUR 25 million already this year. Although this is a sales call, I can share that operating performance has been good, and cost savings at the end of September are in line with the annual target of EUR 1.2 billion, which is confirmed. On that basis, we confirm our financial targets for the year. I will not walk you in detail through page three, which is straightforward, just highlighting that expansion and M&A is - 0.6% over the quarter, which includes perimeter adjustments in Brazil after the divestment of Nacional and Bompressor stores.
Also highlighting that Forex at - 2.8% is far less negative than it was in H1 or Q2, as BRL has appreciated against the euro in Q3, and parity is almost stable since the beginning of the year. Moving on to more details on the performance of France on slide four. The improvement observed in the French market in Q2 confirmed this quarter, with robust food consumption holding up well, particularly in September. The latest data issued by World Pioneer by Numerator that just came out on the FMCG market shows growth of 2% in P10, reflecting a sound improvement after summer. In this solid market, Carrefour gained 30 basis points in market share, reflecting strength in hypermarkets, up 10 basis points, the success of our commercial initiatives around Carrefour's anniversary in September, and the initial ramp-up of the ex-CORA stores.
With the supportive market backdrop and improving commercial dynamics, like-for-like sales were up 0.7% in Q3 and 1.6% excluding CORA and Match, continuing the positive like-for-like trend from Q2 despite two days of national strike in September, which we estimate weighed in on like-for-like sales by around 20 basis points over the quarter. This performance was driven by food sales growing at + 1.5% like-for-like, with positive volumes in a rational market environment. Let me flag that proximity posted another strong quarter despite high historicals relating to the Olympics. Seventy-five new proximity stores were open during the quarter. On slide five, we detail the commercial transformation implemented at CORA, which is now completed. All CORA stores have been converted to Carrefour's banner, benefiting from its brand awareness. The alignment of prices to Carrefour's level is clearly visible and resulted in an improvement of our price image.
Carrefour-branded products have been rolled out and now represent 28% of food sales, an increase of eight points compared to September 2024. Carrefour's promotional framework has been deployed across ex-CORA stores, implementing a more regular and dense promotional agenda. Finally, the loyalty program, Le Club Carrefour, is now active throughout the network, with 1.7 million new active members from the ex-CORA stores. While this negatively impacts our top line in the short term, we already see clear signs of improvement, with a gradual acceleration in the number of tickets and improved customer perception. In parallel, we continue to build up the synergies related to the integration of CORA and Match in line with our roadmap, and we confirm our target of EUR 130 million by 2027.
Moving on to Europe, on slide six, Carrefour posts another quarter of growth driven by a sound performance in Spain and Belgium, under a supportive consumer environment offsetting soft trends in Poland and Romania. In Spain, we have a solid momentum in a still supportive market. Food sales grew at 2.4% like-for-like in the quarter, in line with Q2 growth, which stood at 2.9% like-for-like. Carrefour continued to improve its price positioning, which drove the NPS up by 2 points. In Belgium, like-for-like sales increased by 2.1%, outlining a solid commercial momentum driven by positive volumes despite a competitive market. In Romania, the group managed to post a slightly positive performance despite a context of degrading consumer confidence following the austerity measures implemented from July. Finally, the Polish market still remains highly competitive, which weighs on our performance.
Nevertheless, our commercial initiatives are well perceived, as evidenced by the strong increase in NPS, up six points. Let's move on to Latin America on slide seven. In Brazil, since May, the market is marked by a difficult backdrop, with record high interest rates impacting strongly consumer purchasing power, notably in the cash and carry market, with negative volumes, whereas retail varejo seems more protected. In this context, Atacadão like-for-like remains above the like-for-like of the cash and carry market but suffers from mid-single-digit negative volumes. Our retail segment remains solid. Carrefour Retail posted a strong performance on both hypermarkets at +3.3% like-for-like and supermarkets at +4% like-for-like, with volume growth and managing to grow the NPS by four points. Carrefour's overall retail reported like-for-like was moderated by the slowdown in non-food e-commerce, as Carrefour Brazil prioritized profitability over volume in its non-food digital operations.
E-commerce continued to show rapid growth. Our overall e-commerce GMV accelerated by 36% in Q3, boosted by a +62% surge in online food sales. Financial services also showed solid momentum, with the credit portfolio up 17% in spite of reinforced selective measures in place. Finally, one word about Argentina, where Carrefour's commercial momentum shows market share gains in an environment still shaped by negative volumes on the back of pressure on purchasing power. Finally, let's move to slide eight for closing remarks. All in all, this quarter confirms the strength and consistency of Carrefour's performance across its key markets. Firstly, a sustained momentum in France and Spain, with French hypermarkets performing particularly well, driven by food. Secondly, in Brazil, we continued to outperform a difficult market. Finally, we're moving ahead on all our strategic initiatives.
Overall, we confirm our 2025 objectives of slight growth in EBITDA, recurring operating income, and net free cash flow. I thank you for your attention. Sébastien and I are now happy to take your questions.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now go to the first question. Your first question today comes from the line of Frederick Wild from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
All right. Good evening, Matthieu and Sébastien. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is, could you give us a little bit more detail on the current trading in France, especially post the completion of the CORA renovations, and whether that CORA business is now accretive to the overall like-for-like in France? Second, would you mind giving us a bit more detail about what happened in Brazil? I think we're all a little bit surprised by the scale of the slowdown in like-for-like there. Any comment you could give on that market and what Q4 would be would be very helpful. Finally, almost further from that, you've reiterated your full-year guidance for slight growth in EBIT. What gives you confidence in that guidance now you're experiencing that extra slowdown in Brazil and how margin diluted that slowdown will be? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question. First one on CORA. As you saw in the restated number, CORA has negatively weighted on the like-for-like of France in Q3. As I said in my comments, the commercial transformation is now complete, and we see traffic in the stores and debits, meaning tickets in the stores, ramping up very rapidly. We also see more soft data, like net promoter score, has also improved very rapidly over the past few months. We're still, I would say, suffering in terms of like-for-like sales by the magnitude of the commercial investments that I have developed during my comment, the commercial investments that we have implemented in CORA. We see that the traffic and the dynamic is positive, more and more positive, month after month, and we think we're ready to engage now into a very good and we think longstanding dynamic at CORA.
It had to be done. It was part of our plan. It's been executed perfectly, as planned, and now we see customers already reacting. This is to be followed, but interesting reactions. Now, Brazil. As you know, interest rates are very high. They're above 15%. As you know, a number of households in Brazil have a significant level of indebtedness. This high level of interest rates, which have increased relatively sharply over the course of Q4 last year and H1 this year, are putting pressure on the debt and interest burden for these households, notably the most modest households. We've also seen a number of credit institutions which have reduced renting of credit, notably consumer credit, to make sure that they managed their level of risk. The consequence of that is that the cash and carry market has entered into negative volumes. It actually started in May.
As I said, Q2 benefited from a very strong Easter campaign and a number of campaigns that we did at Atacadão that we already started to see in the market, that volumes were under pressure at the end of the quarter. That has continued. That has not worsened, but that has continued over Q3. That's something that we started to see coming. If you take back our H1 press release, we mentioned it. This is what we see. We're adapting our model or operations, reinforcing, obviously, our cost savings in order to navigate through this environment. The retail segment, varejo, is exposed to customers, which tend to have a higher purchasing power, and who seem to be less exposed to this level of high interest rates. The varejo, retail, market is more resilient, which allowed us to post stronger numbers than Atacadão.
Your third question relates to the outlook and the guidance for the end of the year. There is a, you know, very, I would say, little or positive development over Q3. That's why we confirm what we already confirmed in July. You've seen the trends in Brazil had already been factored into our landing of the year. In Europe, we were confident at the time that markets would remain positive. They have remained positive in Q3. It is on these grounds that we confirm our guidance.
That's great. Thank you so much.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. Your next question comes from the line of François Digard from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. François, is your line muted? François, your line is open. I will move to the next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of Rob Joyce from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking the questions. We've got three of them. The first one is just in terms of the guidance and the confirmation of small underlying profit growth. Can you say if you still expect to grow underlying profits excluding the sort of EUR 70 million tailwind from Carrefour Italy moving into discontinued? That's the first one. The second one is just let me sort of draw you on Freddie's question, but when is CORA and Match no longer going to be pulled out as a sort of headwind? It feels like that sort of headwind has dragged on quite a bit further into this year than maybe we expected. Maybe can you just give us an idea of what the total profit impact would be in the second half, in France from CORA? Finally, now you're pretty close to closing the Italy transaction.
Are you able to help us understand what the total cash out from Italy will be, the EUR 240 million and then whatever cash losses there have been this year, and whether there's any impact on working capital from deconsolidating the asset? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Rob. On the guidance, let's be clear on what is the base for us saying that we are expecting slight growth. You have to restate for Italy. Last year, we published a recurring operating income of EUR 2.213 billion. That was impacted by a -EUR 67 million in Italy. This year, the pro forma number is EUR 2.280 billion as the new reference base for 2024. We confirm that our objective is to slightly grow from that base. You can do the same math with the EBITDA that we published in July. As far as the net free cash flow, as you know, under IFRS 5, you do not take Italy out. It's isolated on a dedicated line, but there is no restatement of the historical numbers. The historical number that was published last year is the reference. Now, moving to your second question relating to CORA.
CORA is now part of the like-for-like from this Q3 for the first time. We've identified what were the impacts so that you could have a more granular reading, as the trends of the ex-CORA Match perimeter are different from the legacy business. We've provided you additional information for you to be able to feel the impact of both perimeters. There are a number of one-offs, and we disclosed in H1 what was the recurring operating income performance of the legacy perimeter and of the ex-CORA Match perimeter. It's very likely that we will do the same for H2 and for the full year so that you can have a granular reading as these perimeters have different dynamics.
Okay. Matthieu, just to confirm though, you ex for the second half there, to get to the EUR 2.28 billion underlying, some growth on that, we're talking about EUR 2.3 billion. I think, again, drawing on Freddie's question, just which divisions are going to deliver the sort of the growth to see that through? Any particular highlights?
You know, same answer as what I shared with you at the end of July. You've seen no significant news. Most of the development that happened here, we anticipated them. There's a number of good news. I think that our commercial performance in France is positive. The fact that the market has been supportive and that we have experienced, I mentioned that in my speech, just want to make sure you flagged, you pointed that, we have positive volumes, which is good. Same thing in Spain. Brazil was relatively anticipated. In parallel, our cost savings initiatives are performing per plan, so we are happy with that. This is why we confirm our guidance. Now, I'm not going to get into a format or country-by-country guidance, but that's where we are.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now go to the next question. The question comes from François Digard from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Hello. I hope you hear me this time.
Yes.
Great. Good evening, Matthieu. On the last quarter data, could you clarify Carrefour's market share in France, excluding Cora and Match? Was it stronger, excluding Cora and Match? Can you elaborate on the more Carrefour impacts versus last year? My second question would be about Brazil. How did Brazil perform sequentially through the quarter? Thank you.
We just got the data a few minutes ago, so it needs to be analyzed. Our feeling is that the market share gains come from the legacy perimeter, including the hypermarket perimeter, and the contribution from CORA and Match is very, very marginal. Overall, that's our feeling. It needs to be confirmed with them, but that's our overall perception.
The more Carrefour has.
Brazil.
Yeah.
Sorry. Second question on Brazil, where relatively steady performance through the quarter. As I said on the previous question, the trend in terms of market dynamic and volume dynamic has been relatively similar through the month, around mid-single-digit negative in terms of volume. There's been no significant evolution in a way or another.
Thank you. On the first question, have you seen any impact of the Moi Carrefour that took place during P10, I believe?
Yeah. You're right. The Moi Carrefour is the anniversary, which is a commercial event that we have each year. It was exactly on the same weeks, so there is no calendar impact there. It's true that it's been strong, on the back of a regular improvement that we share with you of the price image and the net promoter score relating to our hypers. Same calendar and very good performance of the French teams, with strong promotions, which have worked well.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We will now go to the next question. Your next question today comes from the line of Geoffroy Michalet from ODDO B HF. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I have one question regarding France. It seems that the non-food, retail part is decelerating in Q3 versus Q2. Do you see this trend continuing? What's your view for Q4 on this topic? The second question I have relates to Poland. You flagged your improved NPS. When do you think it could go back to positive territory in Poland? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Geoffroy, for your question. You're right, non-food is an important element in the reading and the good understanding of this Q3 data. We had a relatively strong non-food in Q2, which was helped clearly by some weather elements and a number of seasonal campaigns in the market. This is not specific to Carrefour, but a number of seasonal campaigns which had their impact earlier than they traditionally do. Typically, that has translated some turnover from Q3 to Q2, and conversely, non-food has been relatively weak in Q3. When you do the average of Q2 and Q3, you're very close to the average of what we deliver in a given quarter. It's many balancing from one quarter to the other, with its traffic impact.
That's why I think the Q3 performance, its underlying performance, is strong because we clearly benefited less than last year from the traffic building from the non-food operations. This is why we have flagged in our comments, in the press release, and in the presentation, the food sales trend, which remains quite strong so that you can really have a more precise reading. Second question relates to Poland. The market is tough there, and it negatively impacts us. We're already rolling out in the country our strategy, including some price investments. You may have seen that in local public price surveys, and this is perceived by customers. This is reflecting in the NPS. Hard to give you an outlook for the Polish market, so I won't make a forecast there, just saying that our relative performance is improving.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question today comes from the line of Sreedhar Mahamkali from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, Matthieu, and Sébastien and team. Thanks for taking my questions and excuse the background noise, please. Maybe just to start with France, Matthieu. I think you referred to France being a rational market. Is it a fair read of that statement that you're perhaps satisfied with underlying operating margin progression in Q3 in terms of the work you've done? I realize it's a trading update, but any help is appreciated there. Secondly, in terms of Brazil, you've talked to a difficult consumer, high-interest rates, leveraged consumer households, but yet your current portfolio is up 17%. It seems a little surprising given that backdrop. It seems to have even accelerated from the beginning of the year. I recall more like 15-something. What is the strategy here? Are you not concerned about loan losses accelerating?
Third, just in terms of cash flows, anything we should keep in mind, any transactions you've done that you could alert us to, to keep in mind in terms of property proceeds, disposals, etc.? Please, what you can share would be helpful. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Sreedhar. Obviously, I won't guide on France, but you know, the market has been rational. I think you've all been following that through a number of public indices and comments. There's been no specific initiatives aside from the ones that we undertook. As you know, we had the waves of price decrease at the beginning of Q3 and at the end of August, right before the back to school. You've seen that since the beginning of the year, our price index slightly improved, and we already see more and more positive comments from consumers around our loyalty program, which gives a 10% permanent discount on fruits and vegetables, and even 15% if you're a Pass card holder. This impacts very strongly our price image. No specific reaction in the market, and we remain competitive and want to keep investing into our competitiveness.
Absolutely no change of policy here. As you see regularly, we have waves of price decrease that hit the market. Second point on Brazil. Very important point. Is there a risk on our credit portfolio due to the situation? That's something that the teams have looked at. I must say, have quite well anticipated. When I said in my comment that a number of banks have been more stringent in their criteria to grant credit, it's been the case at Carrefour Bank in Brazil. There is no bad news to date on the cost of risk. That's something, as you can imagine, in the current environment that is monitored very, very closely. On the net free cash flow, no specific transaction to be reported.
We outlined to you at the end of July a quite precise profile on how we saw the net free cash flow in H2 to develop, and this is what is happening. No specific comments to be made there.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or a follow-up question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We will now take our next question. The question comes from François Digard from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Sorry to come back. On Italy, now it is treated as discontinued, but could you elaborate a bit on its recent performance, on the underlying trends? Do you expect a similar bottom-line contribution from Italy in 2025 than in 2024? Thank you.
Again, this perimeter, I mean, we have a binding agreement. The buyer and ourselves have been in the process of meeting conditions precedent for the closing, which has meant intense dialogue with antitrust authorities, notably. This is really virtually pending closing, outside of the perimeter of the group. What I can say is that there is no new significant effect in terms of price determination and so on, that would materially differ from what we did in our H1 accounts. We already booked some elements, notably in the non-recurring line for P&L in H1. This is the bulk of it. If I were to say, we might have adjustments, but I think they would be minor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from Frederick Wild from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Sorry. I'm back again. I don't suppose you could give us an update on the progress of the disposals we've seen rumored in the news on Argentina and Poland and how we should be thinking about the development of those. Thank you.
Thank you, Frederick. You know, no specific comments to make. We're really progressing, we're still progressing in our strategic review. We made it very clear. There's been a few clear lines that have been set by Alexandre Bompard already in February when we launched it. I think that he confirmed that on the call in July. First, we consider that France, Spain, and Brazil are already core markets for us where we have very strong operations and where we think we're going to create significant value in the future. Second point is that there is no taboo, meaning that we're already conducting this strategic review, and it concerns all perimeters, including Poland and Argentina. That being said, the review is underway and there are no specific comments that I can make. I'm not going to comment on rumors, as you can imagine.
When a news or a decision arises, as you saw for Italy, you will be informed in due time.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. We have one further follow-up question. The question comes from the line of Rob Joyce from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks very much. Just quickly, in Brazil, just to understand, did you say that Brazil, kind of the 1.1 run rate we saw in the quarter, is it an appropriate exit rate to think of going into the fourth quarter there? Just on Argentina, in terms of the first half, I think the profitability was kind of down almost halved in the first half. Is that the sort of, given the sales trajectory, we should be thinking similar for the second half? Is there anything else there we need to be aware of? Thank you.
For Brazil, I said that the trend is fairly similar through the months of Q3. There is no significant difference in September than the rest of the quarter. Obviously, it can depend on a specific commercial operation, but I think the trend in the market is fairly stable through the quarter. Argentina is a very volatile situation, as you know. I won't make any forecast for the full year. As you know, there are important elections in the country this coming weekend. We know that consumption and consumers' confidence is significantly linked to the political situation in the country. I won't make any specific outlook for Argentina.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand back to Matthieu for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for attending the call and for your questions. Happy to meet you again on February 17, 2026 for our full-year results. Many thanks. Have a nice evening.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.