France's Carrefour Jan-Sept Sales in Romania Fall 1.2% to 809 Mln Euro

The retailer's like-for-like sales in Romania decreased by 8.1% in January-September, it said in a statement posted on its website. Like-for-like sales is a method of valuation that attempts to exclude any effects of expansion, acquisition, or other events that artificially enlarge the company's sales.

In the third quarter alone, sales in Romania were down by 11% on the year to 277 million euro, Carrefour said.

Carrefour opened its first hypermarket in Romania in 2001. It has 23 hypermarkets in the country, seven of them in the capital Bucharest. Carrefour said earlier this month it will open its second supermarket in the Romanian southern city of Ploiesti by the end of the year.

Carrefour (www.carrefour.com) operated a total of 15,594 hypermarkets, supermarkets and stores in Europe, Asia and Latin America at the end of September. The group's consolidated sales fell to 70.18 billion euro in the January-September period from 71.82 billion euro in the same period of 2008.

($ = 0.6692 euro)