Including full year profits rising at John Lewis Partnership and Morrisons.
The Source rounds up some of the key retail stories of the week.
The John Lewis Partnership has posted a surge in full year pre-tax profits for the 52 weeks to January 28. The group’s profit before tax grew 65.4% to £488.2 million for the period. Its profit before tax, bonus and exceptional items was up 21.2% to £370.4 million. The John Lewis department store business was up 2.7% in like for like sales across the year, with revenues increasing 3.2% to £3.78 billion. However, the group also announced that it would cut the bonus it pays to staff to 6%, retaining more of the profits to ‘strengthen its balance sheet’.
Morrisons has recorded its first full year of profit and like for like sales growth since 2012. The grocer reported an increase of 11.6% in underlying pre-tax profit to £337 million for the year ending January 29. Reported profit before tax was up 49.8% to £325 million, while like for like sales (excluding fuel) grew 1.7% across the year. In addition, Morrisons total sales increased 1.2% to £16.3 billion.
New data from Nielsen has shown that Aldi and Lidl now hold more than 12% of the British grocery market. Aldi saw its sales grow 12% year on year in the 12 weeks to February 25, while Lidl’s grew 9.1%. Together, they now make up 12.3% of British grocery sales. Across the sector, sales were up 1.1%. Iceland, M&S and Waitrose also saw big gains (5.6%, 4.3% and 3.1% respectively), while Morrisons had the largest rise of the big four, up 1.9%.
The BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor has shown that non food sales in the UK fell 0.4% on a like for like basis and 0.2% on a total basis during the three months ending February 25. This marks the first quarterly decline for the over five years. However, online sales of non food products grew 7.7% during the period.
Sainsbury’s is to cut up to 400 jobs across its store estate, removing the role of price controller. The role had required staff to ensure that price labels on shelves were accurate – the remit will now be carried out by other store staff.
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