Sales at Majestic Wine increased 2.8% to £133.8m for the first half of the year, although profits slipped as the retailer invested.

Majestic Wine posted an increase in sales during the first six months of the year

If you’re looking for a victim of the supermarket price war, then Majestic Wine always looks a suitable candidate, given the plethora of cut-price wine offers available in the supermarkets.

“But it must be doing something right, because today’s interim results show that like-for-like sales were up by 2.8%, which is more of a Waitrose than a Tesco-like performance.

“Unfortunately, pre-tax profit is down from £9.5m to £8.5m, but at least this was expected (“due to previously announced investments in infrastructure, technology and consumer insights to support future growth”) and so chief executive Steve Lewis claims that things are going to plan.” Nick Bubb, independent analyst

“While current performance is solid, we believe that Majestic will need to work harder in order to hold its own, especially so over the lucrative festive sales period.

“Majestic will need to work harder in order to hold its own”

Neil Saunders, Conlumino

“The grocers, including the discounters, are very focused on providing value for money through compelling headline deals on wine and champagne.

“This makes it especially important that Majestic continues to focus on quality wines, enthusing customers about wine quality and provenance, in order that it can avoid being pulled into a battle on pricing.” Neil Saunders, Conlumino

“We don’t know if we were being premature in expecting news on the review of the store target.

“There isn’t any and we were rather hoping to hear that the current 330 goal was being reduced.

“That would be something on the way to persuading us away from our sell but with the superstores still using wine as a battleground, the valuation isn’t sufficiently low for us to want to take a chance on the shares.” Anjli Shah, Oriel Securities

“An 11% fall in pre-tax profit is due to previously flagged infrastructure investment weighted to the first half and a disappointing Lay & Wheeler (majestic’s fine wine specialist) performance.

“Encouragingly, UK retail stores like-for-like sales increased 2.8%, active customers were up 1.9% and online sales rose 12.3%. That should reassure that the core business is healthy and solid. Positive movements in key KPIs should reassure the core business is healthy in what is a difficult competitive backdrop.

“Our full-year forecast is unchanged as the 2014 Bordeaux is looking better and £750,000 of double running costs still expected to reverse. We believe the opportunities via new stores roll out (target 300), online and commercial remain unchanged.” Kate Calvert, Investec

Majestic Wine sees sales rise but profits fall during first half