Tesco and M&S report sturdy Christmas meals gross sales | EUROtoday

Retail giants Tesco and Marks & Spencer each noticed a bump in meals gross sales over the important Christmas interval regardless of each mentioning a difficult financial backdrop.

Tesco mentioned gross sales within the UK have been up 3.2% from final 12 months and it had now notched up its highest market share in additional than a decade.

M&S mentioned that it had seen a report variety of clients over Christmas and its meals gross sales have been “strong”.

However, gross sales at its clothes, residence and wonder enterprise fell, with M&S blaming the decline on decrease footfall on the High Street and lingering points from final 12 months’s cyber-attack.

M&S suffered a gross sales fall of just about 3% in its style, residence and wonder merchandise which it mentioned was nonetheless affected by inventory and stock points following the cyber-attack.

Chief govt Stuart Machin mentioned: “Food sales were strong and the business continues to outperform, hitting a new market share milestone in the period.

“Fashion, Home & Beauty is getting again on observe as we work by the tail finish of restoration,” he added.

Tesco boss Ken Murphy said he was “delighted” with the supermarket’s performance over Christmas amid “intense” competition.

He highlighted the performance of the Tesco Finest range, which saw sales growth of 13%.

The supermarket is now expecting to report annual operating profits at the upper end of the £2.9bn-£3.1bn range it predicted in October.

“Tesco has seen a persistently sturdy efficiency over the past couple of years actually, the place it is actually centered on worth,” said Sofie Willmott, associate director at GlobalData Retail.

She said that by price-matching Aldi, and offering lower prices to its Clubcard holders, Tesco had “managed to retain its primary place on the prime of the market”, despite heavy discounting on some of its products to compete with rivals.

“It additionally noticed excellent efficiency in its Finest vary the place buyers are perhaps not consuming out as a lot or treating themselves,” she added.