Tesco posts strong Christmas sales growth
Tesco has posted a 6.7% uplift in UK like-for-like sales in its third quarter ending 28 November after sales grew across all formats, channels and categories.
Furthermore, the supermarket said like-for-like growth accelerated to 8.1% in the six weeks to 9 January as customers took advantage of a festive five vegetable offer, ‘3 for 2’ party food and 25% off six-plus bottles of wine. Tesco’s Finest and Plant Chef ranges were also popular.
Meanwhile, sales of general merchandise rose by 4% during the six-week period after trading was driven by a strong performance in the toys, home and electrical categories.
Online sales grew by 80% which equated to nearly £1 billion extra sales over the combined 19-week period. Large store sales were also strong as customers favoured larger, less frequent shopping trips due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ken Murphy, Tesco chief executive, said: “Our focus on looking after our customers, including delivering record availability, robust safety measures and great value has enabled us to maintain strong momentum through the Christmas period, outperforming the market every week.
“We delivered a record Christmas across all of our formats and channels. In response to unprecedented demand for online groceries, colleagues delivered over seven million orders containing more than 400 million individual items over the Christmas period.”
Looking ahead, Tesco said its guidance for the 2020/21 financial year remains unchanged and that its retail operating profit is likely to be at least at the same level as in 2019/20 when the repayment of business rates relief is excluded.
