Carrefour S.A. 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 1,395 hypermarkets at the end of 2009), the second largest retail group in the world in terms of revenue, and the third largest in profit (after Wal-Mart and Tesco). Carrefour operates mainly in Europe, Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, but also has shops in North Africa and other parts of Asia, with most stores being of smaller size than hypermarket or even supermarket. Carrefour means "crossroads" in French. Previously the company head office was in Levallois-Perret, also in Greater Paris.The first Carrefour store opened on 1 January 1958 in suburban Annecy near a crossroads (carrefour in French). The group was created by Marcel Fournier, Denis Defforey and Jacques Defforey and grew into a chain from this first sales outlet. In 1995 it merged with Promodès, known as Continent, one of its major competitors in the French market.Marcel Fournier, Denis Defforey and Jacques Defforey had attended several seminars in the United States led by "the Pope of retail" Bernardo Trujillo, who influenced them to move forward with Carrefour idea.The Carrefour group was the first in Europe to open a hypermarket, a large supermarket and a department store under the same roof. They opened their first hypermarket on 15 June 1963 in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, near Paris in France.In April 1976, Carrefour launched a private label Produits libres (free products – libre meaning free in the sense of liberty as opposed to gratis) line of fifty foodstuffs, including oil, biscuits (crackers and cookies), milk, and pasta, sold in unbranded white packages at substantially lower prices.In May 2011, Carrefour reviewed its situation under conditions of stagnant growth and increasing competition in France from rivals including Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA, and planned to invest €1.5 billion ($2.1 billion) to change the supermarket with the new concept of Carrefour Planet in Western Europe.
Net income € 371 million (2011)
Totall assets € 47/93 billion (2011)