Carrefour, Europe's biggest retailer, said underlying sales growth accelerated in the first quarter, driven by Brazil, the group's second largest market after France, while sales in austerity-hit Spain rose for the second consecutive quarter. Sales at closely-watched French hypermarkets slowed amid a price war, however, while China, another key emerging market Carrefour has earmarked for expansion, also stayed weak.

Chief Financial Officer Pierre-Jean Sivignon said that Carrefour saw the market's consensus for core operating profit of around 2.38 billion euros this year as "reasonable at this stage". Carrefour is battling to reverse years of underperformance in Europe, where it earns 73 percent of its sales. Its problems are partly due to a reliance on the hypermarket format it once pioneered now that customers' habits have changed to favor more local and online shopping.

In France, which accounts for almost half of group revenues, same-store sales at Carrefour's hypermarkets rose 0.7 percent, a slowdown from a 1.4 percent rise in the fourth quarter 2013.

Source: www.reuters.com