Carrefour S.A. (French pronunciation: [kaʁfuʁ]) is a French multinational retailer headquartered in Boulogne Billancourt, France, in Greater Paris. It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world (with 1,452 hypermarkets at the end of 2011), the second largest retail group in the world in terms of revenue (after Wal-Mart), and the third in profit (after Wal-Mart and Tesco[3][4]). Carrefour operates mainly in Europe, but it had made better progress in China. Carrefour means "crossroads" and "public square" in French. Previously the company head office was in Levallois-Perret, also in Greater Paris.
French operations[]
The chain's Carrefour Hypermarket division has its head office in Courcouronnes, Essonne, France, near Évry.
International operations[]
Malaysia[]
Carrefour opened its first store in Malaysia in 1994 and by 2012 it had grown into 26 stores. On 1 November 2012 Carrefour announced that it had completed its sale of its Malaysian operations to Japanese retail-chain AEON. All former Carrefour stores are rebranded as AEON BIG, and will be run as a separate brand from the existing JUSCO stores in the country.[1] All stores are in the process of rebranding and is expected to be complete by June 2013.
Singapore[]
Carrefour had two hypermarkets - Plaza Singapura (opened in 2003) and Suntec City (opened in 1997). Both stores were closed in September 2012, and they were replaced by Giant Hyper for Suntec City, and Cold Storage/John Little for Plaza Singapura.
United Kingdom[]
Carrefour had several hypermarkets in the UK until the 1980s. They were located in Leyland,[2] Caerphilly (Mid Glamorgan), Minworth (Birmingham), Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham), Glasshoughton (near Castleford), Eastleigh (near Southampton), MetroCentre in Gateshead, Telford Shopping Centre (Shropshire), Boroughbridge (North Yorkshire), Swindon and Cribbs Causeway in Bristol. All stores were later acquired by the Dee Corporation, but continued to trade as Carrefour for some time before being converted to Gateway Superstores. Some of the old Carrefour stores in the UK are now branches of Asda, for example the Merry Hill store near Dudley, West Midlands, which opened on 1 July 1986 but was converted into a Gateway in 1988 and since 1990 has traded as an Asda.[3]
As of 14 July 2011, a range of Carrefour's products are sold in the UK via Ocado.[4]
Valley Country[]
Carrefour had a hypermarket in Valley Country, but however since October 2013 it withdrew the business.