Morrisons sales jump 3.1% to £3.7bn

Morrisons has revealed that its quarterly sales increased 3.1% to £3.7bn in the 13 weeks ending 30 April 2023, with like-for-like sales up 1%.

Its wholesale channel sales were also up by 20%. However, total group revenue fell by 0.9% to £4.5bn reflecting lower fuel sales year on year.

Additionally, its underlying EBITDA for H1 was down by 10.7% to £394m reflecting sustained investment in price and continuing significant inflationary headwinds.

Looking ahead, the grocer expects to have almost 1,000 Morrisons Daily stores trading and a significantly enhanced position in the important UK convenience sector.

David Potts, CEO of Morrisons, said: “Although we are still in the foothills of our new journey, we are making good progress in our plans to develop a broader, stronger Morrisons built on traditional values with modern methods. The momentum we reported in the first quarter has continued with further progress in our like-for-like sales and in our price competitiveness. We also saw significant improvements in the key measures of customer satisfaction, availability and value for money.

“Inflation remains disappointingly and stubbornly high which means that customers are still very much on a budget. Through the quarter we continued with our programme of large scale price cutting campaigns, complemented by quick, tactical price cuts in areas where we can see the early signs of inflation easing.”

He added: “We are making very good progress on both our £700m three-year cost reduction programme and our plans to deliver £500m of working capital improvements over the medium term. I am pleased to be confirming our guidance for full year underlying EBITDA to be up and for debt to be down.”