Sainsbury’s has reported Christmas sales of more than £1bn, which is a record high for the supermarket giant.
In the 15 weeks to 07 January, like-for-like sales increased 0.1 per cent, significantly better than analysts’ forecasts. The retailer was expected to see a 0.8 per cent drop in sales, and this was the first growth in sales since March 2016.
Clothing and general merchandise businesses performed well for Sainsbury’s, rising 10 per cent and 3 per cent. At the same time, there were strong performances for its online and convenience stores, with sales increasing 9 per cent and 6 per cent respectively. The impressive performance of Sainsbury’s was helped in part by Argos, who it acquired last year for £1.4bn, and has seen shares jump more than 6 per cent.
“We continue to see the grocery supermarket business being challenging but we know that we have some solutions to that – not least, when we put in an Argos store grocery sales go up. We believe we now have our destiny in our own hands,” Sainsbury’s chief executive Mike Coupe said.
Discount supermarket Lidl posted a 10 per cent rise in sales during Christmas, with the British Retail Consortium producing a report on Tuesday indicating that retailers experienced strong food sales over Christmas. Meanwhile, Big Four rival Morrisons reported its best Christmas sales performance for seven years, after like-for-like sales increased 2.9 per cent in the nine weeks to 01 January.