Analyse d'un hypermarché étranger en Chine (document en anglais)

I. Introduction of China’s hypermarket industry

First of all, China’s retail market increases of 7% per year. Its sales represent almost $405 billion in 2010. Retail sales augmented to 16,3% in 2011 while the GPD expanded to 9,7%. China is expecting an augmentation of the double of this percentage in the next three years.

Now, we are going to see the market structure in China:

• Department stores: Golden Eagle, Parkson, Shenzhen Suibao...

• Hypermarkets: Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Vanguard, tesco, Metro...

• Supermarkets: A-Best Supermarket, Baija supermarket...

• Convenient stores: All Days, Family mart...

• Speciality stores: GOME, Suning...

• Discount stores: Carrefour Discount

• Franchising: KFC, McDonalds...

• Direct selling: AMWAY, Mary Kay...

• Online retail: Taobao, Alibaba, eBay...

In the hypermarket’s industry, there are three main categories of products: grocery, fresh food, and non-food.

The average size of a hypermarket is of 96875 square feet and the average annual sales are $326 per square feet.

There are a few competitors in China’s hypermarket industry because there are a lot of Chinese distributors and also more and more Western distributors but the main players are Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Tesco.

• Carrefour: we are going to talk about it in the next part.

• Wal-Mart: is an American multinational retailer created in 1962 by Sam Walton. The firm arrived in China (Shenzhen) more than 15 years ago. In 2012, Wal-Mart raised its stake to 51% in “Chine Online Supermarket Yihaodian”. It is the first largest retailer in the world and in the United States

• Tesco: is a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer founded in 1919. It is the 3rd biggest retailer in the world, behind Wal-Mart and Carrefour and the first distributor in United Kingdom. The group detained 6351 stores in 2012 over the world and 124 in China. Tesco also introduced the “Tesco Express” in China. Nowadays, Tesco has 35 stores in China because the firm just arrived in the country 8 years ago.

• Traditional stores: the Chinese people do not obviously know foreign brands like Tesco, Carrefour or Wal-Mart. The habit of food of the Chinese people is a huge advantage for traditional stores.

Then, we are going to see the demand in China. Nowadays, as we said before, there are more than 1,3 billion potential customers in China; the population grows up each year. Furthermore, there is more demand in big cities (Beijing for example) and on the east coast, because the population is concentrated there.

After that, Chinese people would like some products that are not expensive because the majority of the population does not have a lot of money.

II. Overview of Carrefour

Carrefour is a French group of the retail sector founded in 1959 by Marcel Fournier and Denis Defforey. Its headquarters are in Annecy (France). Carrefour’s name in China is “jiā lè fú”, which means the house of joy and happiness.

In 1969, Carrefour launched its first store abroad. This is the beginning of the internalization of Carrefour. Nowadays, the company operates in Europe, in South America and in Asia (with a turnover’s percentage of 7%), which are three main markets.

In 2008, Carrefour has a turnover of 87 billion euros including:

• 44% in France

• 37% in Europe excluding France

• 12% in America

• 7% in Asia

We can underline the fact that Carrefour has become the leader distributor in Europe and it is the second distributor in the world, just behind Walmart, an American firm.

Nowadays, Carrefour develops 4 main grocery store formats: hypermarkets (1302 stores in 2008 / 57% of the turnover), supermarkets (2919 stores / 17% of the turnover), hard discount (6255 stores / 10% of the turnover) and convenience stores (4813 stores / 16% of the turnover).

The firm has more than 15000 stores in 35 different countries and 495000 collaborators at the end of 2008.

Then, we can focus on Carrefour in China: the slogan of the company is “Happy Shopping in Carrefour” and the mission is to fulfill customers’ needs with full effort and offer the best prices to customers, in every retailing format, and in the range of the best goods.

Carrefour's success in China is especially due to the respect of the food habits of the Chinese population: Carrefour offers a varied variety of local products, and it is most of the time cheaper than the traditional stores.

III. Carrefour

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