Tuesday, November 18 2014

Although the Carrefour hypermarket's opening in Armenia's capital city Yerevan is announced for January 2015, the world-renowned French company is already conducting sales for the past several days in the space it has been allocated in Yerevan Mall, Haykakan Zhamanak daily reported.

"Carrefour has put on Christmas trees and Christmas toys for sale in an area of about 40 square meters. The company workers told our correspondent that, as it is announced, the Carrefour hypermarket will open at the end of January and it is just that a pre-holiday commerce is held in connection with the New Year. Judging from the labels on the Christmas trees and toys, it seems the products being sold are brought to Armenia from the Tbilisi branch of Carrefour; "Carrefour Georgia" is written on the labels," Haykakan Zhamanak wrote.

To note, according to the reliable sources of the agency, the Carrefour hypermarket in Yerevan was to work on the basis of a franchise owned by a large U.A.E. developer Majid Al Futtaim Holding (MAF). "We are already working in 13 countries of the world. We have recently included several CIS countries in our portfolio, among them Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia", MAF Chief Executive Officer said to Russkiye Emiraty. The company has already opened its first Carrefour supermarket in Georgia and is going to open a store in Azerbaijan. To recall, at present MAF has already 45 supermarkets. 

To note, by the number of its stores (over 15 thsd) Carrefour Group (France) holds the first position in Europe and the second position in the world. Carrefour hypermarkets' assortment includes up to 80,000 food and non-food items. The total staff consists of over 400 thsd people. Nothing has been said about the investments in the opening of the hypermarket in Yerevan, however, experts estimated the investments at 6-8 mln USD.     

To note, by ArmInfo's data, Majid Al Futtaim Holding (U.A.E.), the Carrefour franchise holder, started to consider its possible entry into Armenian market a couple of years ago. Observers think that the opening of Carrefour in Armenia could have had a strong impact on the competitive environment in the sphere of organized retail trade, which is actually divided into 2 large networks owned by oligarch parliamentarians.