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Exit Carrefour
家樂福，十字路口
Carrefour’s presence in Thailand is similarly modest.
家樂福在泰國的表現并不算出色
Whereas Britain’s Tesco has become the country ’s biggest grocery chain, Carrefour lies in a distant fourth place.
在英國的特易購成為泰國最大的連鎖店的同時，家樂福的排名卻只有第四。
Across the border in Malaysia it trails well behind Tesco and two other foreign retailers.
在馬來西亞全境，家樂福都要遠遠落后于特易購和其他兩家外國零售商。
And so, with a Gallic shrug, Carrefour is closing up shop in much of South-East Asia. Its 44 stores in Thailand, 23 in Malaysia and two in Singapore are for sale.
對于這種現狀，家樂福擺出一副“責不在我，我也沒轍”的姿態，陸續關閉東南亞大部分的門店。它準備出售44 家泰國店，23 家馬來西亞店以及2家新加坡店。
Potential buyers are said to include Tesco and Casino, a French firm that already has a Thai joint venture, Big C. Analysts reckon that Carrefour’s stores could fetch up to $1 billion.
據說潛在買家有特易購和卡西諾，后者是一家擁有泰國合資企業Big C 的法國公司。分析師估算，家樂福的競購價可以達到10億美元。
Carrefour was one of the first foreign grocers to open shops in South-East Asia in the 1990s. But the later-arriving Tesco proved cannier in figuring out what consumers wanted.
家樂福是上世紀90 年代最早在東南亞開設分店的外國零售商之一，但是后來者特易購似乎更了解客戶的需求。
When the firm found out that Thai shoppers traveled for miles by bus to its “big-box” stores, it opened smaller stores in rural towns.
當特易購發現泰國消費者需要乘坐幾英里的公交車才能到它的大型賣場后，就開始在鄉間小鎮里開設小型門店。
Carrefour focused on Bangkok’s higher spenders and stuck to its hypermarket format.
而家樂福則定位于曼谷的高端消費群體，堅持“大型賣場”路線。
Toby Desforges, founder of Engage, a marketing consultancy, calls this the “take it or leave pressure from activist shareholders to reverse the firm’s global expansion and focus on Europe.
市場分析機構Engage 的創始人之一將家樂福的這種做法釋為“要么接受，要么摒棄”。最終，泰國消費者選擇了將它摒棄。家樂福的股東們一直在給首席執行官羅盛施加壓力，要求他停止家樂福在全球的擴張計劃，而專注于歐洲市場。
Mr. Olofsson has said he prefers to leave markets where Carrefour is not one of the top two retailers or has little hope of becoming one.
羅盛說，家樂福在有些地區不是市場的領頭羊，也沒希望成為領頭羊，他傾向于放棄這些市場。
For all that, Carrefour’s retreat from South-East Asia may be ill-timed. Compared with Europe, the region ’s economy is buoyant.
不管怎么樣，家樂福選擇從東南亞退出的時機不對。和歐洲比，這里的經濟生機蓬勃。
Thailand’s modern retail sector is growing rapidly despite the country’s political turmoil. The same is true of Malaysia.
雖然歷經政治動蕩，泰國的現代零售業仍在快速發展。馬來西亞也是如此。
As incomes rise, more shoppers will opt to drive to large, air-conditioned stores. Some might even develop a taste for French cheese.
當收入增加時，更多購物者愿意驅車前往寬敞大氣、空調開放的超市。有些人甚至還會迷上法國奶酪呢。
