Carrefour Pattaya to Remain Open for Now

When Central Festival Pattaya Beach opened on Beach Road, five times bigger than the Carrefour complex, the title of “Most Popular” changed hands. But even now, the roads around Panid Chang (also called Soi Yume) and Central Pattaya Road back up traffic all the way to Sukhumvit Highway and on weekends create a continuous traffic jam around the major retail center.

Pattaya is the shopping Mecca for all 11 Eastern Seaboard Provinces so the hundreds of thousands of weekend shoppers come from the north, south and east into Pattaya, mostly via Central Pattaya Road and all from Sukhumvit Highway. Many shop at Carrefour.

In fact, Carrefour is so popular in Pattaya there was talk of opening a second Pattaya store on the corner of Sukhumvit Highway and Soi Khotalo in front of the Eastern Grand Hotel. The lot was cleared and fenced two years ago, but construction still has not started.

Reports say that the potential buyer who wishes to takeover Carrefour in Thailand is one of the main competitors, Tesco Lotus.

A new Asia District Manager has been appointed by Target Stores, USA, which plans new stores in Asia and is also rumored as a potential buyer of Carrefour stores if they close in Asia.

Recent reports indicate that French hypermarket chain Carrefour is considering divesting its stores in Malaysia. This is causing speculation that Carrefour will not expand and exit Southeast Asia altogether, selling its stores in Singapore and its 39 Thailand stores as well, including the very profitable Pattaya store.

Import Manager of Carrefour Pattaya Bootsanee Saengthong squelched this report saying, “The stores in Thailand are doing fine and sales at Carrefour Pattaya are doing great as well. I’m sure that the business is usual for every store.”

However, fresh produce industry website Fruit Net reported last month that Carrefour has plans to sell off its South East Asian stores to focus on markets where it can dominate, primarily in India where the stores are doing extremely well.

The company denied this report by posting to the main website saying that they are not closing and in fact are investing in opening four more hypermarket stores in Asia.

Just three weeks after, another report indicate that Carrefour will be selling off its 22 stores in Malaysia for “the purpose of rationalization of their overseas business”.

Mrs. Bootsanee added, “For now I cannot see why Carrefour in Thailand should be closed down as there are many foreigners here and we hold a lot of imported products in which foreigners love to buy. If the stores in Malaysia get taken over, I do believe that the stores in Thailand will not be affected.”

According to Carrefour's website, Asia accounted for only 7.6 percent of the total €85,963 million (3.4 million baht) of consolidated net sales in 2009, in comparison Latin America accounted for 13.7 percent and Europe (excluding France) 35.7 percent. France accounted for the remaining sales.

“Carrefour in Thailand sells products that appeal to local tastes along with some imported goods. In Pattaya we stock approximately 35 percent foreign produce as well as imported wines as the company targets middle class local Thais and the expatriate community,” continued Mrs. Bootsanee.