PARIS Carrefour, Europe's largest food retailer, said on Wednesday that it looked to the end of the year with confidence, and kept its 2023 financial goals even though sales growth slowed in the third quarter.

Third quarter sales reached 23.629 billion euros ($25 billion), marking like-for-like growth of 9% which was less than 10.3% growth in the second quarter, Carrefour said, adding it confirmed a cost savings target of 1 billion euros for the year.

The sales growth moderation reflected a slowdown in food inflation in Carrefour's core markets of France and Brazil.

Carrefour said it was expecting a continuation of current trends and reiterated its financial targets for 2023, which are for further growth across its main three indicators - earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), recurring operating income and net free cash flow.

($1 = 0.9450 euros)

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)