Sainsbury's Christmas sales beat expectations
Sainsbury’s set the bar for supermarket trading over Christmas today as it posted better-than-expected sales growth in the third quarter.
The UK group, which has overtaken Asda to become the second-biggest supermarket in the UK, according to reports, delivered 3.6% like-for-like sales growth in the 14 weeks to January 8 after overcoming last month’s severe weather.
The week running up to Christmas saw transactions hit an all-time high of 24.5 million.
The strong performance, which overshadows rival Morrison’s modest 1% same-store growth revealed earlier this week, comes at the end of a quarter when the supermarket added a record-breaking 700,000 sq ft of store space and created 6,000 jobs.
The figure, which excludes fuel and includes VAT, will put pressure on industry leader Tesco, which will give its Christmas trading update tomorrow, and follows a mixed run for UK retailers – after high street chains HMV, Next and Debenhams all posted a slump in sales over the Christmas period.
