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Google & Carrefour Launch Voice Grocery Service in France

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Alphabet’s (GOOGL - Free Report) division Google and France-based grocery retailer, Carrefour has launched a new voice-based grocery shopping service in France.

The service will allow customers to voice order groceries with the help of the Google Assistant. It is a digital voice assistance service that is available on smartphones, compatible smart speakers and connected screens.

The Assistant is connected to Carrefour's e-commerce inventory. It will allow users to add items to their shopping list simply by voice commands. The list will get converted into a cart of products available for sale on the Carrefour.fr website. This will enrich the shopping experience provided by the retailer.

The new service is part of the deal between the two companies that was signed in June 2018.

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Partnership to Benefit

This seems to be a win-win deal for both the companies. With the latest move, Carrefour will strengthen its competitive position against its rival Casino’s subsidiary Monoprix and E.Leclerc. Notably, both these companies are striving to improve their customer base by going online and enhancing delivery services.

Moreover, Carrefour plans to invest 2.8 billion euros in digital commerce by 2020-end due to increasing competition from Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) . It also aims to increase food e-commerce sales to 4.2 billion euros by 2022 from 1.3 bilion euros in 2019.

The latest deal is in line with Carrefour’s strategy of boosting sales and profits in the near future.

In addition, the recent partnership will enable Google to foray into the growing European online retail market.

The European grocery market is rapidly growing and holds the potential for further growth opportunities. Per a report from a research and training firm, IGD, the grocery retail market in Europe is expected to witness a CAGR of 3.7% between 2017 and 2022. Further, the French market is expected to see a CAGR of 2.1% in the same time frame.

We note that Google’s strategic partnership will help it in reaping benefits from this growing market.

Google’s Focus on Retail Sector

The company is continuously making efforts to establish itself in the ever-growing retail market with innovative shopping apps and services. Google aims at helping the retailers to improve customer reach with these services.

In this regard, it has teamed up with big retailers like Walmart (WMT - Free Report) and Target (TGT - Free Report) to make its products available online for purchase via the app called Google Express.

Further, the company recently unveiled voice activated coupon for the customers of Target who shop from its app using Google Assistant.

All these efforts have helped Google in reinforcing competitive position against Amazon, which has been the company’s biggest rival in almost every sector including home automation, cloud, voice assistants, audiobooks and so on.

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