RIYADH, 11 September 2007 — Carrefour has launched a major promotion under which it has neatly stacked over 50,000 items for sale including a range of groceries on “the best promotional price with quality and choice.” This initiative, on the occasion of the holy month of Ramadan, is part of an ambitious exercise under which the Carrefour stores gear themselves on festive occasions with offers of the widest choice of world-class brands.
Christophe Rey, chief executive officer of Saudi Hypermarket Co, which owns and operates six Carrefour stores in the Kingdom, said “our strength lies in the fact that we offer eight to 15 percent lower prices than our competitors and on the top of that, we provide better quality and choice.” He said “our business strategy is to consolidate our position in the Saudi market and to stay here.”
Rey disclosed that the French supermarket chain would open four new outlets in Saudi Arabia within a year. The new hypermarkets will be located in Jeddah, Taif, Riyadh and Madinah. “This is in addition to the opening of several Carrefour stores across the Gulf states, Yemen, Libya and Pakistan,” he said, adding that the Saudi Carrefour, a joint venture between Al-Olayan Group and the Majid Al-Futtaim Group, aims to launch over 20 stores around the Kingdom in next seven years.
Asked about the stiff competition faced by the mushrooming stores, the Carrefour chief said “some hypermarkets and stores belonging to different business houses of the Kingdom may not face the stiff competition and eventually die.” He pointed out that some supermarket chains, which are operating prestigious retail stores and hypermarkets here, are already making losses. He said that Carrefour has mapped out a comprehensive strategy to do business and stay in the Kingdom permanently. Asked about the growing customer base, he said that a single Carrefour store in Saudi Arabia, on a daily basis, receives between 6,000 to 8,000 customers.
Referring to the Carrefour’s concerns for corporate responsibility, Rey said Carrefour has launched reusable plastic bags, and hundreds of thousands of these bags have been given to customers in a span of six months. The campaign is aimed at creating awareness on the impact of plastic bags that pollute the ecosystem each year and encouraging shoppers to reduce their use, he noted. Available at checkout counters, the reusable bags are sold at cost price.
Carrefour, established in 1963 in Paris, maintains the top position in the Gulf, while it also maintains its top rank in European mass retailing. “About 40 percent of customers, in the case of the Gulf, are expatriates, mainly because we have also brought the best products of their own countries,” Rey said. He pointed out that Carrefour always cares to cater to the diverse ethnic tastes and food habits of different nationalities.
In fact, the opening of Carrefour hypermarkets created a large number of jobs for Saudi nationals, who represent some 35 percent of its work force at the moment.