Leclerc maintains leading position

E. Leclerc, the co-operative French retail group, has maintained its position as the leading food retailer in France in the first half, the company claims.

Leclerc has been fighting for some time against the Loi Galland, a piece of French legislation which is designed to protect producers and suppliers in their negotiations with the major retail chains by reducing the likelihood of price wars. Leclerc claimed that this law would prevent products from being sold at a discount and would effectively penalise the consumer by keeping prices high.

But the legislation seems to have had little impact on Leclerc's prices, however, at least if its sales figures are anything to go by. In the first eight months of the year, the company said that its consolidated sales had risen by 5.5 per cent to €2.6 billion, and excluding petrol sales, the rise would have been 6.1 per cent.

Leclerc cited data from the Secodip statistical office that showed its market share in France at 16.8 per cent, down 0.1 per cent, ahead of Carrefour with 15 per cent (down 1 per cent), Intermarche with 11.7 per cent (-0.8 per cent) and Auchan with 11.4 per cent (-0.6 per cent).

Only hard discount outlets, in particular the Leader Price chain, and the Systeme U group actually increased their market share during the period, in the latter case primarily as a result of a sharp increase in the number of outlets. Leclerc, in contrast, actually had four stores less than in the same period of 2001. Leclerc said that its gains in turnover had come at the expense of Auchan (30 per cent), Carrefour (25 per cent) and Intermarche (25 per cent), compared to Carrefour (60 per cent) and Intermarche (19 per cent) in the previous year.

Michel Edouard Leclerc, head of the family group, said the company had had an excellent year so far in terms of its image, prices and growth of own label products but that it still had some work to do in the fields of customer service and store design.