Tesco has upgraded its full-year profit guidance and said continued investments in its customer offer have resulted in a “stronger trading performance than anticipated”.
The supermarket saw a 6.9% increase in like-for-like sales in the 19 weeks to January 6, covering its third quarter and Christmas trading.
It posted a 9.2% rise in like-for-like sales in the four weeks to Christmas, while its market share in the UK grew by 15bps to 27.9%.
Online sales were up by 11.5% in the lead-up to Christmas and total Tesco Finest sales increased by 16.7% to reach a “record Christmas sales week”.
As a result of strong trading performance, the grocer has increased its profit guidance to £2.75bn from its previous guidance range of £2.6bn to £2.7bn.
Tesco chief executive Ken Murphy said: “The Tesco team has worked harder than ever to help customers celebrate this Christmas, with our strongest ever range of great-value, fantastic-quality food. I want to say a huge thank you to all of our colleagues for their relentless dedication and energy.
“We stepped up our investment in service over the key festive period, with more colleagues on the shopfloor, helping to deliver market-leading availability and making this our best Christmas yet.
“As part of our focus on value, we offered a full Christmas dinner for just £2.09 per person, helping to drive record sales in the weeks leading up to Christmas and further market share gains.
“We put a strong focus on quality and innovation, too, with over 550 new and improved festive products.
“Over 18 million customers took the opportunity to treat themselves by shopping from our Finest range, which saw sales growth of nearly 17%.
“Over the period we cut nearly 2,700 prices, with a further 150 prices cut just this week, cementing our position as the UK’s cheapest full-line grocer.
“Our powerful combination of great value, quality, availability and service means that we head into the new year in great shape to keep delivering for customers.”
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