Highlights:
Strong Q3 and Christmas performance
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION
Strong Q3 and Christmas performance
Christmas like-for-like sales up 9.3 per
Q3 like-for-like sales up 8.6 per cent (excl. fuel), with total retail sales up 6.8 per cent (excl. fuel)
Grocery sales grew 7.4 per cent, with Groceries Online up 128 per cent
General Merchandise sales grew by 6.0 per cent, with Argos sales up 8.4 per cent
Clothing sales grew by 0.4 per cent
Total digital sales grew by 81 per cent, 44 per cent of total sales
We now expect, after forgoing business rates relief of
'We made a strong start to delivering our Food First plan and we are also clear on the opportunities to further improve our offer as we look ahead for 2021. At Christmas we focused on offering our customers great prices, great quality and great service and I feel really proud that Sainsbury's customer satisfaction scores were the highest ever in the key Christmas week. We have started the new year with a strong value offer, with Price Lock currently on over 2,500 everyday products.
'Many customers had to change their Christmas plans at the last minute and we sold smaller turkeys and more lamb and beef than normal. While people had smaller gatherings, they still treated themselves, with Taste the Difference sales up 11 per cent. Premium champagne sales were up 52 per cent, Taste the Difference party food was popular throughout December and people did more home baking than usual with mincemeat sales up 24 per cent. Customers still wanted
'More customers bought their food online than ever before and we delivered 1.1 million orders in the ten days to Christmas, double the number of last year. Argos sales were up over eight per cent with Fast Track home delivery and Click & Collect beating expectations for Black Friday and Christmas.
'We are delighted that our 'Help Brighten a Million Christmases' campaign raised
'We remain focused on delivering the plan we outlined in November and look forward to providing a further update on early progress at our Preliminary Results in April.'
Outlook
Grocery, General Merchandise and Clothing sales were stronger than our expectations throughout the quarter and particularly since the start of
The impact of the pandemic on sales, colleagues and costs adds additional uncertainty to our financial outlook for the remainder of the year. However, after forgoing business rates relief of
Strategic and operational highlights
We published a Strategy Update with our Interim Results in November, focused on putting food back at the heart of Sainsbury's and are making encouraging progress towards this:
Food First
We delivered strong food sales through the quarter. Basket sizes increased as customers bought more of their shopping from Sainsbury's and we grew our Food market share
We continue to lower prices on the products that matter most to customers, with a particular focus on fresh foods. Last week we launched our biggest ever Price Lock, covering over 2,500 products
Colleagues delivered excellent customer service throughout the key Christmas weeks and customers felt safe shopping with us. Scores in availability and friendliness of colleagues improved by 10 percentage points and six percentage points respectively year-on-year
We are focused on offering exciting new products and bringing them to our customers faster. Christmas innovations this year included Taste the Difference Pink Prawn Roses, Pigs in Blankets Christmas Tree and flavoured spirits such as Taste the Difference Blackfriars Winterberry &
Taste the Difference performed well over the quarter, with sales up more than 11 per cent and we launched over 60 new Taste the Difference Christmas products. Our meat-free range Plant Pioneers also outperformed the market and customers bought more of our vegan centrepieces such as our No Turkey Parcels and our No Beef Wellington
Groceries Online sales grew by 128 per cent year-on-year, accounting for 18 per cent of grocery sales. We have more than doubled the number of slots we can offer for home delivery and Click & Collect; Click & Collect accounted for 24 per cent of online sales in the key Christmas week. We have further increased the productivity of our online operation: as we build order capacity from broadly the same fixed asset base, orders per van continue to increase and pick rates have returned to pre-COVID levels
SmartShop self-scan accounted for 28 per cent of sales in stores with handsets, leading to strong customer satisfaction scores in ease and speed of checkout
We continue to invest to have the right stores in the right locations for customers. We opened six new stores in the quarter, including two new Neighbourhood Hub stores in Bishop's Waltham and Midhurst
Brands that Deliver
Argos sales grew by over eight per cent in the quarter, with nearly 90 per cent of sales starting online and Fast Track delivery grew by 62 per cent
Argos growth was driven by a strong performance across a wide variety of categories, with particularly good growth in Christmas gifting, gaming consoles and TVs. This was despite a Black Friday performance which reflected a continued reduction in promotional activity in favour of lower everyday prices
Tu Clothing has grown market share in both value and volume, with strong online growth
6.4 million people are now using digital Nectar and Nectar participation at Argos remains ahead of expectations
Financial Services recovered from first half losses to book a profit in the third quarter. We continue to expect to deliver an underlying profit in the second half of the financial year to
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Notes
Certain statements made in this announcement are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from any expected future events or results referred to in these forward-looking statements. Unless otherwise required by applicable law, regulation or accounting standard, we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.
A conference call will take place at 09:15. To listen to the audio webcast we recommend that you register in advance. To do so, please visit https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/investors/results-reports-and-presentations prior to the event and follow the on-screen instructions. A transcript will be available following the conference call.
Sainsbury's will announce its Preliminary Results for the financial year to
1 Total retail (exc. Fuel) like-for-like sales, 9 weeks from
2 The timing and mechanic by which we will forgo business rates relief is still to be determined but we expect to recognise the forgoing of
See full release at: https://about.sainsburys.co.uk/news/latest-news/2021/07-01-2021-q3-results
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