Asda Q1 revenues fall 5.9% to £5bn
At the start of the year, Asda relaunched its Rollback to Asda Price programme, as it aimed to deliver ‘outstanding’ value for customers in stores and online
Asda has seen its total revenues fall 5.9% year-on-year to £5bn, excluding fuel, for the first quarter to 31 March, but revealed that it is seeing “green shoots” in its sales performance.
While like-for-like sales during the period declined by 3.1%, this represents a 1.1% improvement on the fourth quarter of 2024. The retailer also saw further improvements in its like-for-like performance in May.
At the start of the year, Asda relaunched its Rollback to Asda Price programme, as it aimed to deliver “outstanding” value for customers in stores and online.
As a result, more than a third of the supermarket chain’s range – which means around 10,000 products – have gone through the Rollback cycle and are now at the new, lower Asda Price. This has established a price gap of 3% to 6% over traditional full-service supermarkets, reflecting Asda’s strategy of keeping prices low by inflating behind the market.
Allan Leighton, executive chairman of Asda, said: “Earlier this year we set out a clear ambition to make Asda the number one choice again for value-conscious families. To deliver this, we are making a material investment to move our entire range to a new, lower Asda Price by the end of next year.
“Although we are seeing the green shoots in sales performance, there is a long way to go, and we remain firmly focussed on widening the price gap over other full-service supermarkets to give customers the savings they expect every time they shop at Asda.”
At the same time, Asda’s clothing line George delivered a like-for-like sales growth of 3.5%, meaning that it outperformed the fashion market by 2% on volume.
Asda Express also performed strongly in the first quarter, having seen like-for-like sales grow by 6% following the integration of all 469 convenience stores and fuel sites acquired from The Co-op and EG Group.
Michael Gleeson, CFO of Asda, added: “We have a clear strategy which we are executing against, backed up by a robust financial plan and a material programme of investment in price, range and availability. This has established a price advantage over other full-service supermarkets and we are beginning to see customers respond positively.
“Our consistent and disciplined approach to cash management and strong balance sheet, gives us the headroom to continue investing in lower prices for customers.”
