Passage 2
When Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) began expanding outside North America in the 1990s, its toughest rival was the French retail chain Carrefour. After opening the world’s first big-box superstore in 1963, Carrefour spent three decades spreading its combination grocery-and-general-merchandise stores across Europe, South America, and Asia. Today, the retailer is in trouble around the globe. On Oct. 13, Carrefour issued its fifth profit warning in less than a year as it reported slumping third-quarter sales in key Western European and Asian markets. Chief Executive Officer Lars Olofsson, recruited from Nestlé in 2009, is the company’s third CEO in seven years, and four top executives have been replaced in the past 12 months.
Carrefour shares have plunged nearly two-thirds since 2007, when LVMH Moёt Hennessy Louis Vuitton CEO Bernard Arnault along with U.S. real estate investment group Colony Capital spent $5.5 billion on a 9.8 percent stake. That investment is now worth less than $2 billion. They “got the timing wrong” on Carrefour, says Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) analyst Justin Scarborough. “The markets they’re in have come under huge amounts of pressure since 2008 and lots of those pressures aren’t going to go away. ” Arnault and Colony declined interview requests.
That means Carrefour has fallen far behind $467 billion Wal-Mart. Though they have about the same number of retail locations (9,667 for Wal-Mart, vs. Carrefour’s 9,631), Wal-Mart’s international sales now top $109 billion, almost surpassing Carrefour’s total $114 billion in revenues. While Wal-Mart has generated roughly 7.5 percent operating margins in recent years, Carrefour managed only 5.5 percent. In profits, the divide is particularly acute: Walmart last year logged net income of $7,804 per employee while Carrefour earned just $1,260.
24.Carrefour has fallen behind Wal-Mart because it has few retail locations around the world.
A、True
B、False
【正确答案】：B
【名师解析】:题目中指出Carrefour和Wal-Mart拥有相似数量的零售地点，Wal-Mart有9,667个，而Carrefour有9,631个。然而，Wal-Mart的国际销售额达到了1090亿美元，几乎赶上了Carrefour的总营收1140亿美元。此外，Wal-Mart的运营利润率约为7.5%，而Carrefour只有5.5%。在利润方面，Wal-Mart每位员工的净收入为7804美元，而Carrefour仅为1260美元。因此，Carrefour落后于Wal-Mart的原因并不是因为它在全球范围内拥有较少的零售地点，而是由于其较低的销售额、利润率和每位员工的净收入。所以，选项A的陈述是错误的。
