Asda vows to ‘double down’ on strategy as like-for-likes slide

For the three months ending September 30, Asda reported total revenues excluding fuel of £5.1bn and a 2.8% dip in like-for-like sales for the period.

The retailer noted that its Project Future IT migration caused “severe disruption” to trading in the period, and that systems “have now been stabilised”.

Asda said that progress in the first half “and in recent weeks” gives it the confidence to “double down” on its strategy moving forward and noted like-for-like sales in its Asda Express c-store format were up 3.5%.

The retailer also said it would continue to invest in the business “through Q4 and 2026”, which would be underpinned by its “strong capital structure”.

Executive chair Allan Leighton said: “We said it would take three to five years to turn Asda around. We made good progress in the first half of the year against our ‘Formula for Growth’ with the best availability in eight years, a notable price gap versus competitors, and a return to like-for-like growth.

“At Q2 results, we said that the cutover from Project Future, although completed, would likely have a negative impact on our performance. This change severely disrupted our systems and materially impacted our progress, as we saw a step-back to inconsistent availability, operational issues at depot and in-store, and a poor customer experience online and through the app that impacted our Grocery Home Shopping business in particular.”

“Since then, we have made good progress stabilising our platforms and the worst of the disruption is now behind us. Availability is back to where it was in June, operational issues are reducing and performance in recent weeks is improving, but we do not expect to re-establish our Q2 2025 position until Q2 of 2026. Thank you to all our colleagues for their hard work and commitment and our customers for their patience.”