Sainsbury Supermarket' s Christmas sales Fall

Sainsbury's chief executive, Mike Coupe said the supermarket had traded well in "a highly competitive market".

 

It is the second of the big four supermarkets to report sales over the Christmas period.

On Tuesday Morrisons surprised analysts by reporting its first positive sales figures in more than a year.

Mr Coupe said the 0.4% decline in third quarter sales was an improvement on the previous two quarters and he expects the second half of the financial year to be better than the first half.

But he warned that "food deflation and pressures on pricing will ensure that the market remains challenging for the foreseeable future".

In November, Sainsbury's reported a fall in half-year profits, citing a "particularly challenging" market as it said like-for like sales in the six months to the end of September fell 1.6%

Underlying pre-tax profits for the period fell 17.9% to £308m.

Mr Coupe said Sainsbury's would "continue to remain competitive on price and our performance this quarter provides further evidence that our strategy is working".

He added sales in the seven days to Christmas were 2.6% higher at 30 million.

According to market share figures from research firm Kantar Worldpanel, Sainsbury's was the best performing of the big four supermarkets - which includes Tesco, Sainsbury's Asda and Morrisons - in the 12 weeks to 3 January.

Its market share rose 0.1 percentage points to 17% compared with the same period in 2014, making it the only one of the big four to increase its share.