Tesco and Sainsbury’s maintain share after a festive dead-heat January 15, 2013 BRITAIN’S biggest retailer Tesco and third-place grocer Sainsbury’s tied in the battle for sales growth in the key Christmas period, according to data published yesterday. Market researcher Kantar Worldpanel said Tesco and Sainsbury’s both posted identical gross sales growth rates of 3.9 per cent in the six weeks ending 6 January, with market shares unchanged [...]
Best of the Brokers January 14, 2013 WM MORRISON UBS rates the supermarket “neutral” and has cut its price target by 20p to 250p following lacklustre Christmas trading figures announced last week. The analyst warns that Morrison’s cost-cutting plan is being made more difficult by underlying declines in sales volumes and cost inflation. UBS has also pared its like-for-like sales forecasts for [...]
Little Christmas cheer for retail January 14, 2013 Chief Market Strategist, Cantor Index THE official retail activity figures, which are posted monthly or at specific times like Christmas, are accurate but often indecipherable to the layman. The small print is where the message is. And the most recent figures suggest that Christmas was great for some, but brutal for others. The situation was [...]
The good, the bad January 10, 2013 THE DIVIDED state of the UK retail sector was brought into sharp focus yesterday as an upbeat Tesco and Shop Direct claimed victory in the Christmas retail wars, while Marks and Spencer suffered the fallout of a worse-than-expected festive period. Following muted performances by rivals Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, a resurgent Tesco revealed its strongest sales [...]
On the rack January 9, 2013 MARKS & Spencer was hit by a worse-than-expected drop in general merchandise sales over the Christmas quarter, the retailer was forced to reveal last night after figures were leaked after trading hours. Britain’s biggest clothing retailer said like-for-like sales at UK stores open for more than a year fell 1.8 per cent in the 13 [...]
FTSE 100 up on US earnings optimism January 9, 2013 Engineers and financial stocks led the blue chip index up in early trading, as a solid start to the US earnings season boosted investors’ appetite for stocks. Miners also advanced as investors welcomed news that Alcoa, the US’s biggest aluminium producer, forecasted a positive outlook for 2013. The FTSE 100 – trading around 0.4 per [...]
Sainsbury’s unveils rise in Christmas sales January 9, 2013 Sainsbury’s saw a record number of customers over the Christmas period, as it reported a small rise in sales over its third quarter. In a trading statement this morning, the supermarket posted an increase of 3.9 per cent in total sales over the 14 weeks to 5 January, while sales at stores open longer than [...]
Sainsbury’s takes the lead at Christmas January 8, 2013 SAINSBURY posted the highest sales growth of the so called big four grocers in the run-up to Christmas and was the only one to grow market share, data revealed yesterday. Figures from Kantar Worldpanel showed Britain’s grocery market grew 3.2 per cent in the 12 weeks to 23 December, with the strongest growth at the [...]
Aldi hitting the mainstream as customers seek value January 8, 2013 THIS time last year poor results at Tesco shocked investors and the grocery sector, although followers of YouGov’s BrandIndex and this column would have been aware of their problems a month earlier. With the all-important Christmas season now behind us I’ve taken a look back at 2012 to see what the big customer perception stories [...]
Morrisons says Christmas sales disappointing January 7, 2013 MORRISONS chief executive Dalton Philips yesterday defended his strategy for the group after the grocer confirmed its position as the turkey among “the big four” this Christmas. The grocer reported a 2.5 per cent slump in like-for-like sales in the six weeks to 30 December, despite the help from an extra pre-Christmas trading day compared [...]