Carrefour Corp Taiwan (家樂福), the nation’s largest hypermarket operator, yesterday said it was expanding its business to mobile phone services to boost revenues.
Carrefour will offer telecom service at its 55 outlets nationwide for pre-paid mobile subscribers via subsidiary Carrefour Telecommunications Co (家樂福電信) today after a soft launch in January.
Carrefour Telecommunications is leasing network space from Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s top telecom operator.
During its promotional period, Carrefour will offer a program that enables cardholders to earn one point for every dollar spent at Carrefour stores. A hundred points can be exchanged for one minute of telephone time.
“By doing so, we hope to increase customers’ visit frequency and time spent at the outlet, and also help Carrefour create a new source of revenue,” said Li Yi-jen (李宜真), general manager and director of Carrefour Telecommunications.
Carrefour has 3.8 million members, all of whom are potential subscribers to the mobile phone service, Li said. Most members usually pay NT$600 in telecom charges per month, Li added.
Carrefour posted lower revenues for the third quarter at 365 million euros (US$467 million), down 1.4 percent year on year, after contaminated milk powder curtailed consumer purchases.
The firm first tapped cellphone services in Europe 10 years ago. It now offers services in collaboration with telecom operators in Belgium, France, Italy and Poland.
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