Sainsbury's sales growth due to supermarket's "universal appeal"

Wednesday, 07 October 2009

Sainsbury's has reported like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, up by 4.6% during the second quarter of its financial year.

Including fuel, like-for-like sales for the 16 weeks to 3 October 2009 were up by 1.3%. Total sales for the quarter were up by 3.2%.

Justin King, chief executive, said: "The Sainsbury's brand continues to perform well in what remains a challenging consumer environment. Like-for-like sales in the quarter, excluding fuel, were up 4.6% and adjusting for the negative impact of the change in the rate of VAT, like-for-like sales growth, excluding fuel, was 5.4%.

"Weekly transactions now exceed 18.5 million, over 800,000 more than the same time last year.

"We have continued to develop our offer, providing customers with both the quality they expect from Sainsbury's and prices they increasingly recognise provide outstanding value for money.

"Our strong momentum has also continued with record levels of product availability and customer service and last week we were delighted to be named ‘Supermarket of the Year' at the Retail Industry Awards 2009.

"Our non-food ranges are performing well and growing at nearly three times the rate of food. Our TU clothing range celebrated its fifth anniversary in September and is now a well-established and popular part of our offer.

"In July we launched our non-food offer online and we are pleased with the early progress this new customer channel has achieved. Our online food home delivery service saw sales growth of 20%.

"During the quarter we opened 12 convenience stores, bringing the total opened in the first half of the year to 19, and we are on track to achieve our target to open 50 additional convenience stores this year.

"We opened 19 new supermarkets, including 14 Somerfield and Co-operative supermarkets acquired earlier this year. Supermarket openings in the first half totalled 24 and are performing ahead of expectations."

He added: "We are on track to grow space by 15% in the two years to March 2011, providing customers with an even better food offer and non-food ranges.

"We have announced plans to create 10,000 new jobs in the two years to March 2011, primarily through the opening of new stores and in the quarter we created 1,500 new jobs. Recruitment for our 20,000 Christmas temporary colleagues begins next week and we are well on track to achieve our target of 500 places on our apprenticeship schemes for bakers, butchers and fishmongers.

"Our performance in the first half continues to show good progress as we also invest for the future. While we expect market growth to slow in the coming months due to reduced inflation, the universal appeal of our focus on quality and value leaves us well positioned going forward."