London, April 22 - French grocer Casino Guichard Perrachon posted a 3.3 percent fall in quarterly sales, hit by calendar effects, foreign exchange-rate moves, lower petrol prices and sliding sales at its hypermarkets.
The group, which operates of more than 10,000 stores in 10 countries, said on Wednesday that it made first-quarter sales of 6.62 billion euros ($8.6 billion), with a 5.6 percent fall in France cushioned by a 1 percent rise in international markets.
A Reuters poll of nine analysts gave an average of 6.73 billion in sales, with a range of estimates from 6.67 billion to 6.8 billion.
Excluding petrol and the impact of an extra leap year day in the same period last year as well as changes in the timing of Easter, sales were up 1.3 percent, which Casino described as "a satisfactory performance in the current business environment."
Larger rival Carrefour last week reported a 2.8 percent fall in first-quarter sales, hit by similar effects.
Casino said that in France, strong growth at its Cdiscount stores and a satisfactory performance in supermarkets was offset by weak trading at its Geant hypermarkets, where sales of discretionary non-food goods have been hit hard in the consumer downturn.
Same-store sales at Geant fell 8.6 percent, excluding petrol, with non-food sales down 11.7 percent and food sales depressed by customers switching to cheaper own-label products.
Casino shares have underperformed the DJ Stoxx European Retail Index by 25 percent over the past year, dogged by concerns over its 4.85-billion-euro debt pile and the level of borrowings at major shareholder Groupe Rallye.
In March, the group unveiled plans to sell 1 billion euros in assets to cut its debts, and also announced a deal to sell 334 million euros of property and pass the proceeds onto investors.
Casino shares closed up 1.5 percent at 45.56 euros, valuing the business at about 4.4 billion euros.