Consolidation of trends in France, sales up 5.3%
- Excluding petrol, sales in France grew 7.0%
- All formats grew like for like sales. Ex-petrol, hypermarket and supermarket sales were up 3.6% and 4.7% respectively, hard discount +1.7% and convenience +2.8%
- Growth was underpinned by growth in food volumes in both hypermarkets and supermarkets and by a better performance from non-food
- The Group won 0.3% food market share in France in the period*
 
Accelerating growth in Europe ex-France, sales up 8.4% on constant exchange rates
- The acceleration is underpinned by a 2.9% like-for-like sales growth, mainly driven by a solid performance in Spain in all activities, and by Belgium, which shows the first signs of improvement across all formats
- Italy recorded a slight improvement in like for likes thanks to a robust performance from supermarkets and convenience stores. Hypermarket trends were in line with those of the Second Quarter.
- Other European countries have maintained the positive trends recorded in the First Half
 
Growth in Latin America and Asia, sales up 9.9% and 14.0% respectively on constant exchange rates
- New engines for growth - for example Colombia, Indonesia and China – continued to show strong growth
- These trends were mitigated by Brazil, where we see strong deflation, and Taiwan, which has been impacted by a tightening of consumer credit and by cannibalisation
 
Outlook: we are confident but prudent
- In a macro-economic and cometitive environment which remains difficult, notably in Europe, we are focused on the execution of our customer and growth-led strategy
- We are confident that we will achieve our objectives for 2006: faster sales growth than in 2005 on constant exchange rates and an increase in Activity Contribution, although at a slower rate than sales

* Source: TNS Secodip for the period between 19 June and 10 September 2006