ABSTRACT
The internationalization of Carrefour increased rapidly, through the 1990s, and by 2002, the firm had stores in more than twenty countries. It had approximately a hundred stores in Asia, most of them being hypermarkets. In the Asian market, Taiwan was the first country where Carrefour set up businesses. Carrefour opened its first store in Kaohsiung, a southern city of Taiwan in 1989. Since then it has gradually increased its presence, with 5 stores by 1992, 10 stores by 1995 and it had 26 stores in 2001. The number of employees exceeded 6,000 and sales totalled NT$43 billion. Compared with Makro, the second largest hypermarket operator in Taiwan with sales amounting to NT$13.8 billion, Carrefour is considerably larger. Carrefour has become the largest hypermarket operator in Taiwan over a period of only ten years.
