Sainsbury’s sales up as shoppers buy bargains
Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has seen like-for-like sales grow 1.9 per cent in the past three months, excluding sales of fuel but including VAT, confirming the subdued consumer spending trend.
It warned that customers were turning to its own-brand products to try to spend less on food and had focused on products included in meal deals.
Chief executive Justin King described the quarter as “a solid sales performance, in line with our expectations, in spite of the continued tough consumer environment.”
“Our customers continue to manage their spend carefully. The increase in fuel costs is placing further pressure on consumer disposable income,” it said in a statement.
Sainsbury’s did not provide a figure for sales excluding fuel and the impact of VAT but Shore Capital analyst Clive Black said that if a similar contribution was made to its sales as to Tesco, which reported yesterday, he estimated that like-for-like increased by about 0.8 per cent.
Tesco reported an 0.1 per cent fall in its sales in the past quarter on that basis, reduced from an 0.7 per cent fall in the previous quarter.
Black said Sainsburys performed better because “it has a lower non-food participation and a greater relative contribution from immature space”.
The 1.9 per cent sales figure was in line with his estimates of 1.5 to two per cent growth.
Sainsbury’s total sales including fuel were 7.3 per cent or 4.8 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
It said fuel price inflation combined with higher sales of fuel had pushed the total figure up.