UK retailer Morrisons has released a trading statement for the nine weeks to 6 January, a period that saw it post like-for-like sales growth of 3.6%.
Like-for-like growth from the group’s retail operations were up 0.6%, while the contribution from wholesale was 3.0%. Total sales, excluding fuel, were up 4.0%.
The retailer is the first of several ‘big guns’ this week to post a trading update, with Sainsbury’s to post a quarterly update on Wednesday, and Tesco and M&S to follow suit on Thursday.
Fourth Consecutive Christmas
"This is Morrisons fourth consecutive Christmas of like for like sales growth during the turnaround,” commented chief executive David Potts.
“Our performance shows colleagues are listening hard and responding to customers, providing consistently great value and good quality when it matters most. I would once again like to thank the whole Morrisons team for what they continue to do for our customers.
Morrisons said in the statement that it ‘performed well’ during the period, maintaining a stable price for a basket of Christmas items year-on-year.
It said that customer satisfaction ‘increased significantly’, particularly around employee friendliness and the checkout experience.
The number of transactions fell 0.9% on a like-for-like basis, however the number of items per basket was up 0.8% during the period, the retailer added.
"Morrisons is well set to keep improving the shopping trip and become more and more relevant for more customers,” Potts added.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
