Aldi sees a doubling of annual profits and a 40.6 per cent leap in sales September 30, 2013 Budget supermarket Aldo has announced a 40.6 per cent increase in sales last year, rising to £3.8bn, with profit doubling from £70.5m to £157.9m, moving away from the pack of other UK supermarkets in terms of growth. With a growing middle class clientele and one million extra customers coming through the doors of its 500 [...]
Second quarter GDP confirmed – but revisions see annual growth lower September 26, 2013 UK GDP revisions see growth unchanged at 0.7 per cent in the second quarter, inline with analyst estimates which expected no change from the preliminary reading. Revisions have seen GDP to the second quarter drop from 1.5 per cent to 1.3 per cent however. Growth in the first quarter has been revised up from 0.3 [...]
British retail sales climb to a 15-month high September 25, 2013 THE BRITISH retail sector’s recovery strengthened at the start of this month, with a leading industry survey pointing to the fastest sales growth since June last year. Nearly half – 46 per cent – of shops surveyed by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said that sales were higher than at the same point last [...]
Amazon unveils new Kindle Fire HDX tablets September 25, 2013 Amazon has unveiled two new Kindles. The Kindle Fire HDX includes a new feature which allows users to open an video chat with a tech-support to instruct the user how to operate the new device. Chief executive Jeff Bezos, speaking to reporters at Amazon headquarters in Seattle said of the new feature named the 'May Day [...]
Bottom Line: Forty-year-old retailer is true pioneer in age of the internet September 24, 2013 WE DON’T think retail is dead. It is just being repositioned.” So said Ebay president Devin Wenig yesterday, as the US auction giant launched a tie-up with Argos that will see some of the latter’s 700 stores used as drop-off points for deliveries from 50 Ebay sellers. Once again the catalogue firm – founded in [...]
Amazon ready for busy Xmas September 24, 2013 ONLINE giant Amazon said yesterday it plans to hire 15,000 seasonal staff across its UK fulfilment and customer service centres, as it gears up to meet demand this Christmas. Last year the group hired 10,000 temporary staff across its eight UK warehouses and Edinburgh call centre, offering permanent roles to 1,000 of the staff at [...]
CNBC Comment: Why active funds struggle to outperform September 23, 2013 IT’S ONLY 91 days until Christmas and, for the movers and shakers in the fund management industry, we’re close to “squeaky bum time”. This is when we begin to see who has delivered the goods, and who has to start lining up their excuses for another year of underperformance. Yet unlike in the Premiership title [...]
Tea expert who’s found a new blend September 23, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks to Mike Brehme, who is transforming hot drinks for the second time WHAT do you do when you’ve already transformed that most British of pastimes – drinking tea? That was the conundrum facing Mike Brehme – co-founder of Clipper Teas, whose newest venture FruitBroo has recently come onto the shelves at Sainsbury’s [...]
Bottom Line: Not much room at the bottom September 17, 2013 IF APPLE doesn’t want to chase the low end of the market, there are others who do. In America, Intel has announced its chips will be inside US tablets selling below $99 by Christmas. In the UK, step forward Tesco. Next Monday’s launch is widely anticipated to reveal a Tesco tablet cheap enough to consider [...]
Golf Comment: Johnson peaking as FedEx Cup finale nears September 17, 2013 THE BMW Championship may have ended a day late due to bad weather but there’s not too much wrong with Zach Johnson’s timing as the finale to golf’s richest competition arrives this week. Former Masters winner Johnson’s victory on Monday was his first of the year but capped a superb run of six top 10 [...]