Retailer Carrefour confident on 2023 outlook as Q1 sales growth accelerates

PARIS (Reuters) - Carrefour, Europe's largest food retailer, said on Tuesday it was confident of more profit and cash flow growth this year despite high inflation, after sales growth accelerated in the first quarter.

First quarter sales reached 22.071 billion euros ($24.24 billion), marking like-for-like growth of 12.3%.

This was driven by a solid performance in France, where its closely-watched hypermarkets benefited from their discounts aimed at cash-strapped shoppers.

The first quarter also showed an acceleration from 10.9% sales growth in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Carrefour confirmed its financial targets for 2023, which are for further growth across its main three indicators - earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), recurring operating income and net free cash flow.

($1 = 0.9103 euros)

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)