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Earnings Call: Q3 2020

Oct 28, 2020

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Carrefour Analyst Conference Call. I now hand over to Mr. Alexandre Bompard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Sir, please go ahead.

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

Good morning to all of you. Thank you for being with us today. I hope you are well and safe. I would like to personally convey three key messages before we answer your questions. The first is that we are standing strong in an unprecedented situation. As the COVID-19 crisis continues, we are maintaining an extreme level of vigilance in three respects. On the health situation in all our countries and the responses to it by public authorities. The first wave is continuing in Latin America, while the second wave is hitting Europe. In recent weeks, confinement has been extended in Argentina and partially reinstated in Spain. A curfew has been introduced in most regions of France, Italy, Belgium, while new restrictions have been adopted in Poland. We are preparing for the possibility of further restrictive measures being announced in the near future.

Second, on the safety of our teams and our customers. We have put in place an entire arsenal of sanitary measures since the start of the crisis, and we have them regularly audited to ensure that they are fully respected. Our countries have also initiated a certification process of their health measures against COVID-19 by independent third parties. To date, this process is progressing well in France and Spain. Brazil and Romania have already been certified. This is clear recognition of the quality of the work done on a daily basis on the shop floor. Third, on our operations. We have a crisis management playbook with responses to each stage of the crisis. We ensure short decision-making processes. We circulate best practices. We reinforce our logistics plan to support the food supply chain, and we create new and dedicated services for customers.

On all this, we have a key role to play, and we are up to this challenge, thanks to the exceptional commitment of our teams. They continue to be fully invested in customer service. My second message is that we are performing extremely well in this crisis. Our sales grew by 8.4% this quarter. We have not only recorded our best performance in 20 years, we have also outperformed our peers in many areas and geographies. This crisis makes the market more buoyant overall, notably because of a shift away from consumption outside of home to consumption at home. We benefit from this situation, although it varies from country to country. The crisis did not suddenly make us more efficient. If we are moving as fast as we are and faster than competitors, it's because our strategy is right and appeals to customers.

That's the result of the attractive commercial model we have built for them. Our model relies on five priorities. First, competitive prices in most of our countries and the best prices in the market in Brazil and Spain, notably. Second, an assortment that meets customer expectations. Our own brand is growing steadily in our sales, and we are reinforcing our leadership in organic products as we outperform the market and continue to expand. Third, a first-rate and fast-growing digital offering. By investing heavily in online, we have added an omni-channel dimension to our multi-format offer. Our infrastructure and expertise allow us to accelerate. Our annual growth in food e-commerce exceeded 30% for the first two years, and it has more than doubled in recent months with an increase of +65% this quarter.

Looking at the future, we have further enriched our network of partners and put in place logistics to dominate the home delivery market, a promising market where we already are the leader in France. It's not just about e-commerce. Everywhere in our group, our digital transformation has knocked down walls within our businesses. We bring more and more digital to our stores, to our front, middle, and back offices. We are more data-centric, and we develop new uses for our customers. Fourth, leadership and the food transition for all. The crisis has brought us fully into a world where customers want to regain control of their diet to preserve their health and the planet. The food transition provides an answer to this. That's why I wanted Carrefour to embody it.

That's why we continue to take many initiatives that are visible to customers. Lastly, the factor that underlies all the rest, the energy that we put into quality of execution and customer satisfaction. These are the top five priorities I have set for all country CEOs, starting with the recently appointed ones. A very positive dynamic is underway. Customer satisfaction measured by the NPS is up four points since the end of June and 15 points since the start of the plan. This feeds our sales growth in a remarkable way. My third and final message is that we have strong momentum on solid positions in our key geographies. If I focus on our three key countries representing 70% of our global sales, we have two growth engines that are running at full speed.

In the huge Brazilian market, we are already the leader, and we are widening the gap with the competition. We have very powerful formats. We are the price leader in each of them. Our sales growth this quarter is absolutely record-breaking with +26% like-for-like growth. Both Carrefour Retail and Atacadão are performing extremely well, and our hypermarkets are growing 2 x faster than the market. In Spain, we achieved a rapid turnaround. We now have a competitive model on very high-quality execution, which illustrates what we are doing in other European countries. As a result, we posted +6.3% like-for-like growth this quarter. Our third engine is in France. Building on the decisive reforms carried out over the last two years, France has now entered a phase of renewed growth. Rami Baitiéh is leading this new phase with energy and speed.

He's shaking up our entire organization and streamlining our processes with an obsession in mind, better operate, better serve the customer. France is already reacting very well to his management and methods, as evidenced in our latest figures. Our NPS has increased by +7 points since the end of June, thanks to good progress made in all our formats, and our performance versus competitors is solid. We posted plus 3.8% like-for-like growth in sales, including a clear acceleration in our hypermarkets. In addition to our operations in our geographies, we added another source of growth through bolt-on M&A. We have a real ability to play offense and strengthen our positions in the market in which we operate, as evidenced in Brazil, Taiwan, and more recently, in Spain. This additional growth is enabled by the strict financial discipline and strong balance sheet that has become second nature for our group.

Where does Carrefour stand today? Our performance is visible to all. All the objectives of the Carrefour 2022 plan are either confirmed or enhanced. The speed of our transformation and its success places us in a very favorable position. Of course, we operate in a difficult economic environment, and our services, notably financial services and sales to professionals in Europe, are facing some headwinds. In a year that presents many challenges and many uncertainties, we are delivering strong structural growth in our retail activities, both in sales and profitability. We look to the future of our group with confidence. As the crisis continues, we remain focused on the safety of our teams and clients. Thank you very much for your attention. Matthieu Malige and I are now happy to take your questions.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, you may press zero one on your telephone keypad. We have one first question from Mr. Arnaud Joly from Societe Generale. Sir, please go ahead.

Arnaud Joly
Equity Research Analyst, Societe Generale

Yes. Good morning, everyone. I have three questions. The first one regarding the 555 rolled out in France, how long should it take to have the right implementation? How long to reach the point where you want to be? The second question on France as well. You have just launched the TOP project in France. What impact do you expect in terms of level of inventories, number of employees in France of customers, and the reduction in product shortages? The last question, if you can make any comments regarding the level of consensus for 2020. According to FactSet, it stand at EUR 2.089 billion. Thank you.

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

Perhaps I start with the first question. After top on the level of consensus. You're right. We have been deploying in France with much energy since the arrival of Rami Baitiéh, the 555 methods. We have, of course, experience on develop and implemented these methods in many other geographies for one year and a half. Today, all our geographies have been working on this method, focused on customer satisfaction. In France, since July, this method is implemented with great energy by the new team. As you probably see in the release, the effects of the 555 method are strong in terms of NPS. It improved by seven points since July with an increase in all formats, especially hypermarkets.

This is, of course, a clear first confirmation of the relevance of this method, also a clear sign that there is a very positive attitude, understanding, and behavior of our teams towards these new methods. We see improvements on most criteria, on notably product and promotion availability, the idea that the price is the right price, helpfulness of the teams, waiting time in the cashier. All these key elements for the customers improve very steadily.

It's a very good sign that our customers understand what we are doing for them, understand that the whole organization, from the store, the back office, the headquarters, are completely focused on this customer satisfaction. No reason why it wouldn't continue. On the contrary, we develop these methods, we implement them everywhere, and we are highly confident about the fact that it continue to contribute to the improvement of our NPS, which is, as you know, a key element of our performance.

Matthieu Malige
CFO, Carrefour

On the TOP project, Arnaud, you're right. The TOP project is really about structuring the work in the stores, with dedicated teams working both in store replenishment and contact with the customers. Another team working in the reserves and making sure that the flow of products and the level of inventory is right, and a third team dedicated to making sure that the data, both in terms of our replenishment system and also in terms of price accuracy, is right. The objective of that, we follow them very closely.

We have nothing specific to share at the moment. Clearly, we think that we can have a better flow of products, reduced inventory, probably an increase in productivity, reduced shortages, probably a better accuracy of our prices, and more contact with the customers. All that goes into the direction of a better customer satisfaction and a better efficiency of our operations. Concerning your third question, as usual, I will not point to a specific number. To elaborate, of course, the environment is uncertain and evolving rapidly with the pandemic and the associated sanitary measures and the macro environment. As of today, current market expectations for recurring operating income seem fair. We observe different trends for 2020 ROI.

Given the very solid commercial model we have built in retail on the successful rollout of actions funded on customer satisfaction, we expect profitability to be actually better than expected in the purely retail business. In parallel, some of our activities are penalized by the environment, notably on the financial services, on the other services like Promocash. As of today, current market expectation for ROI seem fair.

Arnaud Joly
Equity Research Analyst, Societe Generale

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Xavier Le Mené from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Xavier Le Mené
Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question actually. Two for me, if you may. First, in France and Brazil, actually, you saw strong performance in non-food sales, of course, in a very specific environment. Does it change actually the view you have on non-food and the hypermarket? That would be the first question. Linked to that, do you see more opportunity for the use of the extra space in the big stores and potentially, can you share your thoughts?

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

Thank you for your question. On the non-food, we have been very pragmatic this year, as you know. We did think that there was a clear opportunity for us to fulfill customer expectations needs. We have been working for two years. It was a discreet work. It was not possible for you to realize the magnitude of the work that has been done to leverage our international sales, to massify our volumes, to work on the sourcing, to be able to be more attractive for our customers. We have done this work in the last two years. First, on all categories, we are far better than we were before, commercially speaking. We are more attractive. Brazil has done a stunning job to restore attractiveness on the non-food.

On Italy, other European countries, on the rest of our geographies, we have been working to improve all the categories of non-food on which we were not relevant commercially. That's the first point. The second is that during the crisis, of course, we have understood because there was this idea of one-stop shopping that was interesting, that we should be very concentrated on the quality of the operations. We maintain a high quality of investment in order to be capable to grasp the commercial opportunities. I would say it doesn't change globally the vision that we have about non-food. We have never said that non-food was not necessary. We know that we need a strong non-food to fuel all our hypermarkets.

As you know, at the beginning of the plan, we did decide that on a certain number of subcategories, we were not relevant, and we stopped a certain number of non-categories. On the other categories, we are relevant. We have improved a lot our operations. We have improved a lot in terms of commercial attractiveness. During this crisis, we have decided to be commercially very dynamic in order to grasp all the opportunities. On the square meter reduction, as you know, we have a key objective. It remains relevant as some stores are too big and can be efficiently compacted. However, this year, as you clearly understand, we wanted to be absolutely pragmatic, and some projects have been delayed due to the COVID context.

There are many things to do in the stores, as you can imagine, at different stages of the crisis in all our geographies. The key priorities was not at all to create new things to do for our teams. We want them to be absolutely focused on the operations, on the preservation of the health of themselves, on the customers. There are many things to do to improve our e-commerce capabilities on drive and so on. That was not the key priorities of this year, but we confirm in the midterm our objectives.

Xavier Le Mené
Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Andrew Porteous from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Andrew Porteous
Head of European Consumer and Retail Research, HSBC

Yeah. Hi, Jean. You referenced sort of price investments in the third quarter in some of the fresh categories there. Could you just talk about the competitive environment you're seeing in France and whether you think you're improving your price position relative to some of your competitors and what the outlook is like there? You've just talked a lot about non-food, but could you just give us an idea of which categories in particular are performing well? What sort of momentum within the business generally, and particularly within non-food, what sort of thoughts it gives you around peak trading and whether you're seeing customers starting to think about Christmas purchases already?

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

On the prices first, I would say that the environment remains, of course, very competitive. As you know, it has been for three years. It continues to be. There has been probably a little more price reinvestment by some independent retailers, nothing very significant. Nobody is acting in an irrational way, sacrificing margin and bringing the whole market down. That's not the situation. There's competition. Some players invest a little more, some other don't react. We don't belong to the second category. As you know, for the last three years. Thanks to the huge amount of economies that we have been capable to deliver, we have taken many initiatives in all the markets, in all our geographies, and probably you've seen in the press release some of the main ones for the quarters.

In France, since 2018, we have invested first in the supermarket because you know that our belief was that there was room for improvement in supermarket. We have continued that this year. In hypermarket, we have begun to invest beginning of 2019 on unbeatable prices, on committed prices. In September, we invest on fruit and vegetables. We continue to invest. We take some initiatives. The new team is also thinking to new mechanism in order to be more attractive for our customers. We have the capability to invest. We have the level of cost savings to fuel that, and we continue to be part of this competition, but there's no irrationality in the market. On the non-food, I would say that all our main categories has worked positively. You've seen our data for the quarter. They are very strong.

We have good results in the majority of our non-food categories, particularly the categories related to home office, on which we have been good. We have improved a lot on textile because we did think two years ago that we have a role to play on textile. We have a good offer, thanks to TEX. A great job has been done by the team. You know that this level of textile could play a role, and that's why we have decided to invest on the collection, on the positioning related to our values on environment and so on. We are satisfied by the performance on all our key categories, small domestic appliances, textile for the summer, all categories related to home. All these categories work positively.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Next question is from Madame Maria-Laura Adurno from Morgan Stanley. Madam, please go ahead.

Maria-Laura Adurno
Equity Research VP of Food Retail, Morgan Stanley

Yes, thank you very much for taking my questions. I actually have just two questions. The first one is around the guidance that you provided and the comments that you made around the other services and B2B activities in Europe. Just wondering if you could provide some level of context, which country it is in. Any context could actually be helpful for us to then quantify the magnitude of this as part of the overall group. That would be my first question. Second question, coming back to some of the comments you made around the NPS score and the fact that it was driven by hypermarkets. Any incremental comments that you can make would be helpful. Thank you very much.

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

Good morning, Maria-Laura. On your first question relating to other services, I think it's very consistent with what we disclosed in H1. We said that we had some decrease of recurring operating income on the financial services. The reason for that was that we had a decrease in the net banking income following lower issuance of cards and lower use of the cards, and also the fact that we had tightened the conditions for granting credit. We also reflected the increase of the cost of risk. We see these trends continuing in H2.

That's pretty much across all three main geographies in financial services. In terms of other activities, they include B2B, like Promocash. It's obviously a segment of the business that we expect to be still slow in H2, so that should impact our profitability. The same applies to our merchant services, including travel agencies and ticketing. I think you can understand very well that these businesses are quite slow. Pretty much the same dynamic as we had in H1, but we see that dynamic continuing in H2.

Matthieu Malige
CFO, Carrefour

Good morning. Concerning your question on NPS, as you know, it's today the key priorities of all our CEOs on all the management team. We have dedicated programs in all the geography. We have this objective of reaching plus 23 points in group NPS by 2022. I can assure you that it is an ambitious objective. It's not easy to reach this level of improvement. The first six months after my arrival, I see these figures never move. It's really the results of a clear commitment of all the teams towards these objectives. In this quarter, the NPS group has improved by four points after plus three points in the first six months. All the geographies contribute to that, and all the formats contribute to that, to try to give you any further elements.

Of course, it is impossible to improve an NPS by this level without having a clear increase in hypermarket. Of course, the hypermarket is the key priority of all the group CEOs in terms of improving the NPS, because we know that we have so many things to do, so many potentials, so many marge de manœuvre, in order to improve that. We clearly see from Argentina to Belgium, including Poland, that when we manage to do that, we have a strong improvement of the customer satisfaction. It is also the case for digital. We start from a very low point. We always have told that in terms of the quality of service on digital three years ago. The team in all the countries have done a tremendous job to build the omni-channel capabilities, but also to improve the quality of the operations.

We see, including during the crisis that was so difficult for our e-commerce capabilities, that the NPS is continuing to improve in the digital. Of course, on that, we are not at the level where I want us to be. We start from a low point, but including in the NPS, in the digital, including with this level of increasing of volumes, we are capable today to track all the elements that we have to increase, to improve, in order to improve the customer satisfaction and link to the improvement of the customer satisfaction, reduce the churn, creates more intimacy with our customers. That's a job that has been done in all our formats, in all our geographies today.

Maria-Laura Adurno
Equity Research VP of Food Retail, Morgan Stanley

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you, madam. Next question is from Mr. Nick Coulter from Citi. Sir, please go ahead.

Nick Coulter
Head of European Retail and Equity Research Director, Citi

Congratulations on the record growth. A couple from me, please, if I may. Firstly, coming back to French non-food, it'd be helpful to understand to what extent that the growth is sustainable or specific to the environment. Also to try and marry that up to obviously the kind of the reduction in space, the targets that you have for hypermarket over the next couple of years. It certainly looks like there's a way to go with respect to those. Also with respect to France, again, on your operating leverage comments, should we expect you to balance the operating leverage with investments in the offer? Should we expect some to flow through for this year? Thank you.

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

On the first question, good morning. I can answer a second time, but I think the question has been already posed, but just to try to continue to elaborate a little bit more. We have created, I think, the condition since two years to have a sustainable, more attractive offers on the main categories on non-food. We have been working hard on our offers, on our sourcing, on our capabilities that was absolutely non-existent to leverage our size, to propose some volumes, to create any event around our main products. We were unable to do that. We have worked very strongly, and we have improved our own performance. Improving our own performance, we have been creating the conditions for a more sustainable performance in non-food.

Nick Coulter
Head of European Retail and Equity Research Director, Citi

It doesn't mean. But then you reduced space? Surely you'll impact like. That's why I'm trying to square your comments on sustainable non-food with the i ntention to dramatically reduce your space.

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

The first part of your question was non-food. Yeah. The first part of your question was non-food. That's the situation. It doesn't mean, of course, that considering the crisis, we have an additional potential because we know that the capability to offer a one-stop shopping experience increases the attractiveness of our non-food offers. To answer your question, we have a more sustainable non-food offer on a certain number of categories. Concerning the non-food, the reduction of square meters, as I told you, we are well engaged in this process of reducing the stores that are too big, that need to be compacted. It affects mainly the certain number of non-food categories. We have suppressed a certain number of non-food subcategories, for example, we were not relevant on jewelry or on big domestic appliances.

We have reduced them or suppressed them because we don't think that we have a particular role in these categories. Of course, we wouldn't come back on that. During this crisis, on the level of reduction on the square meters, I'm sure you would understand that the key priority from March to June and today with the sanitary measures, with the crisis, with all that our team have to do, was not to continue to reduce that at the same level, because I want to be very pragmatic. I want the team to be very focused on the commercial operations.

They have many things to do. That's why I told you that some projects have been delayed due to the COVID-19 context. Of course, it was the good measures. It has no sense this year to make big changes in our hypermarkets while our hypermarkets are in tension with all that we have to do. The line is the same. We think that a certain number of categories, we are not relevant. In this subcategory, we would continue, and it would affect the level of square meter reduction. For the last quarter on this year, we have been concentrated on the operations.

Matthieu Malige
CFO, Carrefour

On your second question, Nick, relating to the evolution of the recurring operating income by geography. Well, I think you get it quite clear in our communication that we feel that we have three main geographies, and that really two of them, namely Brazil and Spain, have reached winning position. We expect these to contribute to a robust growth in terms of recurring operating income.

As far as France is concerned, you see that the momentum is growing, is improving. There are clearly very positive signs, both on the customer side and on the market share side. We still have to invest more. We are still in a catch-up mode in France, but clearly going very fast. We will keep nurturing that renewed commercial momentum. It is a growth plan, and France needs to get to the same position as the other geographies, Spain and Brazil.

Nick Coulter
Head of European Retail and Equity Research Director, Citi

Super. It's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Next question is from Madame Fabienne Caron from Kepler Cheuvreux. Madame, go ahead.

Fabienne Caron
Head of Food Retail Sector Research, Kepler Cheuvreux

Good morning, everyone. Three questions for me. First one on online. Clearly, it's a focus for investors. Could you share with us for your key markets, Spain and France, because we've got Brazil, the growth of online in this quarter and what the weight in percentage of sales? This would be the first question. The second for top. In France, it looks as if the price is suggested that by April 2021, 70% of your French hypermarket should be under the TOP model.

Could you confirm? It looks as if when a hypermarket moves to top, it gives an extra boost in term of like-for-like. I think it will be very useful. The last question, a more general one for you, Alexandre. It looks as if in France as well, older people or older customers are leaving the hypermarket and not shopping there anymore. Could you give us your thought on that, please? Thank you.

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

I'm not sure to have understood the last question. Can you rephrase?

Fabienne Caron
Head of Food Retail Sector Research, Kepler Cheuvreux

The last one is that when we look at the customer base of the hypermarket, it looks as if the French hypermarket are suffering because the share of their customers, above 50s and 60s, are the customers that not shopping in hypermarket anymore, which is a negative impact for the segment as a whole.

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

Okay. Thank you, Fabienne. I take the first. You are right. This quarter, like the beginning of the year, has been a clear confirmation of the acceleration of the e-commerce. I remember we had this discussion with some of you after the semester and I understood the question, were asking, do you think that it is a sustainable acceleration? I did think that it was a sustainable acceleration, it is the case. We have continued to accelerate. We have increased the distribution capacity during the quarter. We have continued to deploy a network of drives. We have built new partnership for accelerating delivery. Uber Eats in France, Foodpanda in Taiwan, Glovo, Bringo. We have continued to open new in-store order preparation areas and accelerated warehouses mechanization, we have continued to work on new services. All that enabled us to continue to accelerate in all our geographies.

I think it's 200% for Brazil, it's 45% for France. It's around 60%, I think, for Spain. You see this pace of growth is strong. We clearly managed to create the conditions to be leader in a certain number of geographies. We are leader in France on the home delivery market. You remember we were under 10% three years ago. We are now with 25%-27% the leader, which is a great achievement. We will continue to work on that to develop capabilities, to improve our operations. We do think that we are on the good road to be a strong multi-channel leader. Your last question is such an interesting question, and I think we would need much time to discuss about that because it's a key subject.

What we see since the beginning of the plan, and we have been working very strong on that because you're right, the danger for hypermarket, such as in other industry. I used to work in radio 10 years ago, and I remember each year our auditors asked one year more on that it was a very worrying question. Three years ago, we decided to work on how can we be able to attract families. How can we be able to restore a younger generation coming in our hypermarket on being part of our omni-channel model. We have been working on the loyalty programs. We have been working on creating this omni-channel reality, the fact to use all our formats from the proximity till the drive including the pedestrian drive, in order to attract new categories of customers.

I wouldn't say today because you know that too much that it's a winning game. We see positive signs including young families coming back. We see clearly that a certain number of our new customers that have entered France through the digital, we have been capable to recruit 1 million of new customers, begin to be part of our omni-channel model and go to the hypermarket. We have been working on that. It's a long-term journey. I am aware of that. It's something we are facing that, and we don't refuse this reality. It's a reality, but we have good positive signs.

Fabienne Caron
Head of Food Retail Sector Research, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay, is the gain on families enough to offset the older people now leaving the hypermarket format?

Matthieu Malige
CFO, Carrefour

I think the whole strategy, Fabienne, is indeed to attract these families with also playing the multi-format approach so we can address them at any time they want to shop. I think the investments we make on private label, on organic products, on cheaper prices, on more services, I think that targets clearly the families. As Alexandre said, it's something to monitor as time passes, but we're very aware of that, and we have a number of actions to address the families.

On your other question on the top rollout timing, Fabienne, well, the first phases of rollout, you understand that speed is clearly a part of the DNA of this team, we try to roll it out as fast as we can. We think it can have very positive effects in a very high number of domains, as I said to Arnaud earlier. We'll keep you posted on the developments. No clear objectives has been shared today.

Fabienne Caron
Head of Food Retail Sector Research, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, madam. Next question is from Madame Carole Madjo from Exane BNP Paribas. Madame, go ahead.

Carole Madjo
Equity Research Analyst, Exane BNP Paribas

Yes, good morning. Just a couple of questions for me, please. To come back on France, I guess the country is expected to have more severe restrictions and maybe a lockdown going forward. What kind of measures are you taking, notably in hypermarkets, in order to mitigate this potential negative impact? Second question, again, sorry, going back on non-food. Can you remind us how many Darty shop-in-shops you have currently in the Carrefour stores? Maybe give us some updates on this initiative. Is it still ongoing or has it been delayed, as you mentioned earlier because of the COVID-19? Thank you.

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

Thank you. As of today, I would say as of now, no one can say exactly what the sanitary measures will be decided, what would be the scale, the intensity, the length of these measures. Of course, we have been working since this summer, September, on different scenario. We know that ensure business continuity and planning for it is one of our duties. Throughout the crisis, we have managed to very quickly adapt to unforeseen circumstances and keep our activities up and running. The situation is rapidly evolving, you're right, these days, especially in Europe, especially in France. We have a crisis management playbook with responses to each stage of this crisis and to the different scenarios and to the different measures.

It notably includes adapted governance with quick decision-making processes, best practice that we have learned, sharing across countries, launch of new dedicated services for customers, notably elderly people and medical staff. Of course, increase of our e-commerce capabilities. Since this summer, we have not stopped to increase the e-commerce capabilities in order to be ready for a hypothetical new rush. Reinforcements of logistics plans to support the food supply chain, of course, measures of protections of our teams, of our customers. I've spoken about the audit, about the certification, that's our key priority. We are fully ready to the different scenarios in all our countries. Carrefour has managed to continue ensuring its duty as a provider of food for the population.

Despite the situation, we are ready for the new moment in which we enter with much experience, with a good level of preparations, with a good level of anticipation, with a good level of best practices that we have learned from the crisis. On the second one, we have two stores with Darty. As you probably remember, there has been a decision from the antitrust authority. We continue to develop these two stores. We learn a certain number of interesting things on that. You probably understand that it's not our key priority for the moment to develop new stores.

Matthieu Malige
CFO, Carrefour

I think we have time for two more questions.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Nicolas Champ from Barclays. Sir, go ahead.

Nicolas Champ
Senior Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Actually, just wanted to come back on the performance in Q3. Could you please elaborate a little bit more regarding the performance during the quarter? Have you seen a quite linear performance or an acceleration, maybe a skew towards [audio distortion] based on the performance from H1? My question is on the performance. The second question is about if they can give us more color regarding the start of Q4, your performance in October, especially in France, but also in other countries. Do you see a continuation of a solid third quarter trend?

Matthieu Malige
CFO, Carrefour

Thank you, Nicolas. I think I got pretty much your questions. First one, I think, is on the pace throughout in Q3. Well, I think we've had solid trends in all geographies through the quarter. I think our markets have benefited from the out-of-home-to-home consumption switch. It's a steady movement. I think that our performance and relative over performance versus competitors has also been quite steady through the quarters. We have in some geographies or some formats which were particularly exposed to tourism, we have seen a weaker August, I would say. Once the peak touristic season was finished, we got back to the previous trend. That's the dynamic then for Q4. Nothing very specific in October, we need to see. It's obviously too early to talk about Q4.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Sreedhar Mahamkali from UBS. Please go ahead.

Sreedhar Mahamkali
Managing Director, UBS

Yes. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Two quick ones, please. First one, can I come back to non-retail activities and the impact from those? In the first half, I think we've had EUR 70 million impact in France, out of which about EUR 25 million was from the bank. I think we had another EUR 20 million to EUR 25 million in Spain also from the bank.

Now, just for clarity, are you suggesting that level of magnitude still sounds about right to think about for the second half, please? Specifically, have you taken any further provisions in bank in either France or Spain in Q3? I'm sure we'll know in Brazil in a few weeks anyway. That's the first question. Second one, briefly, are you able to talk about channel performance by format in Italy to give a little bit more color there? That'll be helpful. Thank you.

Matthieu Malige
CFO, Carrefour

Thank you, Sreedhar. Obviously too early to comment very specifically on the H2 and full-year performance in the financial services. We'll see. We're working on that ahead of our full-year closing. I think that, again, we had several aspects in H1, and I think in terms of dynamics, I expect them to be still present in H2. That includes pressure on the net banking income. As you know, we had a decrease in card production during the lockdown. We've also seen a decrease in the use of the cards, notably the off-us spendings, and we had shorter term loans.

We've also tightened, and that has continued in H2, the conditions for granting credit. In terms of cost of risk, the IFRS 9 accounting standards provide that once a year, we fully update our model. That also provides for a forward-looking approach, so we'll have to reflect for the current sanitary and economic situation. I'm not worried about the quality of the portfolio. The profile that we see today is very consistent with what we saw in previous crisis. There will be some technical effect as part of the IFRS 9 accounting in H2. That's for the financial services, and I think this trend applies to most geographies.

On your second question, good morning. You're right on the commercial performance in Italy, in Q3 is disappointing, and we have suffered from our exposure to tourist areas where traffic has slowed down significantly this summer. We're indeed particularly present in cities such as Rome, Milan, Florence, as well as in Lombardy and Tuscany regions. In addition, the crisis exacerbates , our lag in customer satisfaction. It's the only country is like that, but in Italy, it is the case. That's why I decided to appoint Christophe Rabatel, who started on September 1st.

He's a young manager, more than 15 years experience at Carrefour, very complementary position. He has a successful track record and is upset, like many of our managers today, by the customer priorities, that the customer satisfaction by the NPS methods. He's aware that his role is to change the customer centricity and to improve the operational excellence. He will build on the foundations led by Gérard Lavinay with the objective to improve commercial momentum in Italy where there's room for improvement. We are absolutely aware of that, and that's the role I give him when he was nominated.

Alexandre Bompard
Chairman and CEO, Carrefour

Thank you very much for this discussion. Keep safe. Talk to you very, very soon. Thank you very much.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.