Morrisons sees Christmas sale slowdown

The Bradford-based company, which has some 450 stores in the UK, saw like-for-like sales excluding VAT and fuel increase 0.7 per cent in the six weeks to January 1, compared with 2.4 per cent in the previous quarter. The City had expected sales growth of one per cent.

The slowdown came despite Morrisons, the fourth biggest supermarket in the UK, claiming a record number of customers, with an extra 800,000 per week shopping there during the period.

The battle for sales gathered pace in early October when Tesco introduced its Big Price Drop, prompting Sainsbury’s to launch a price-matching scheme and Asda to slash petrol prices.

Chief executive officer, Dalton Philips, said: “I am pleased that in a difficult trading environment we have continued to grow our business and have delivered another good performance in a very tough market.

“At Christmas, when customers are even more focused on great quality food at outstanding value, we really need to serve our customers well. We’ve done that and I thank all our 130,000 colleagues for their outstanding efforts.”