(Alliance News) - Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC on Tuesday said its like-for-like sales surged over the festive period, helped by a "renewed focus on traditional Christmas fare" and despite the UK being under Covid-19 restrictions.
The Bradford, England-based grocer said like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, over Christmas and the New Year were 9.3% higher annually.
The company noted that champagne sales were up 64% compared to last year, whole salmon up 40%, and free from mince pies up 14%.
"Shopping patterns and customer behaviour were different this year as the Covid-19 restrictions made larger gatherings of family and friends more difficult. In the lead-up to Christmas we saw more customers shopping earlier than in previous years and a renewed focus on traditional Christmas fare," Morrisons added.
For the nine weeks of the fourth quarter to date, which ends on January 31, retail like-for-like sales excluding-fuel were up 7.3%.
Morrisons highlighted that sales growth and significant operational gearing has offset the extra costs caused by Covid-19. These costs have increased further since the introduction of the most recent tier systems in early December, it said.
"All customer and brand metrics have improved, market share has grown, and our online and wholesale channels are growing very rapidly as we develop as a multi-channel business," the company said.
For the 22 weeks to January 3, part of the second half of its financial year, like-for-like sales, also excluding fuel, were 8.1% higher. Including fuel, like-for-likes were 1.9% higher during the period, the grocer noted that fuel sales were down 23%, hit by new virus restrictions on movement.
Three further new stores were opened during the period, at Helensburgh, Glenfield and Dalton Park, bringing the total to six in 2020, Morrisons noted. The company said it has invested in cutting prices for customers, with deflation a continuing feature for the whole period and volume growth exceeding sales growth.
Online sales were "very strong", Morrisons said, as the grocer said it continued to adapt well to the sustained increase in customer demand, with online sales more than tripling so far in the fourth quarter across all channels year-on-year.
"We will carry on listening, responding and growing, and take all the positive learnings and momentum of the most challenging of years into what we believe will be a better 2021 for all," said Chief Executive David Potts.
Looking forward, Morrisons said it still expect its financial 2021 pretax profit before exceptional items to be in line with its expectations, in the range of GBP420 million and GBP440 million prior to the rates payment of GBP230 million.
For the 52 weeks ended February 2, 2020, Morrisons reported pretax profit of GBP408 million.
Separately, a market share survey by Kantar found that Morrison sales rose 13% year-on-year and its market share improved slightly to 10.4% from 10.3% in the 12 weeks ended December 27.
Kantar said December was the busiest month ever for UK supermarkets, with take home grocery sales up 11% in the 12 week period.
The stock was trading 0.8% higher in London on Tuesday at 182.50 pence a share.
By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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