Morrisons sales surge as customer loyalty pays off
Eating into the market share of its rivals and growing its loyalty card scheme helped sales surge at supermarket giant Morrisons during its latest financial year.
The Yorkshire-headquartered chain has reported a revenue of £15.2bn for the 12 months to 27 October, 2024, up from £14.7bn.
Its group like-for-like sales also increased from 1.8 per cent to 4.1 per cent.
Morrisons added that its underlying EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation] rose from £751m to £835m.
The supermarket giant said sales linked to its More Card surged by 68 per cent and it reduced its debt by 40 per cent from its peak.
‘A year of urgent reinvigoration and positive progress’
Chief executive Rami Baitiéh said: “This has been a year of urgent reinvigoration and positive progress for Morrisons.
“Customer transactions increased, market share grew from Q2 and we saw positive switching from our competitors.
“The improvements across the business have resulted in better availability in our stores, sharper prices, more effective promotions and a strong and growing loyalty scheme.
“This operational progress is now starting to be reflected in our financial performance, with full year like-for-like sales up 4.1 per cent and EBITDA up by 11.2 per cent.
“We ended the year particularly strongly with Q4 like-for-like sales up 4.9 per cent – the strongest like-for-like quarter for almost four years.
“The More Card is firmly established as a customer favourite after a stunning year with linked sales growing from 47 per cent just 18 months ago to 76 per cent today.
“We have introduced a rolling programme of around 2,500 deeply discounted More Card prices and points are now awarded on every product.
“In the two-week Christmas period around 3.5 million Morrisons Fivers were redeemed by customers.
“I want to thank everyone at Morrisons for their commitment and energy every day and for playing their part in the significantly improved performance that we are reporting today.
“Supermarkets, convenience, online, wholesale and Myton Food Group all contributed to the improving picture, helping us serve our customers better.”
The results come after it was confirmed last week that Morrisons had joined Sainsbury’s and Asda in making major job cuts.
‘A significantly strengthened Morrisons’
Chief financial officer Jo Goff added: “A year of broad based operational progress has helped to deliver a significantly strengthened Morrisons.
“We delivered a further £150m of progress on our working capital programme in the year, taking the total since the start of the programme to £450m, and have achieved £312m in our cost saving programme in the year.
“Our capital allocation framework remains to firstly invest in our estate and proposition, second to reduce debt and leverage and third to invest prudently in growth.
“We have a good track record in each of these, and debt is now down 40 per cent from its peak.”