Morrisons reports strong Christmas trading

Morrisons, the fourth largest chain of supermarkets, said a successful advertising and offering promotional deals in the build-up to Christmas has brought over 4 million extra customers.

Its pre-Christmas advertising campaign was fronted by Scottish singer Lulu and football pundit Alan Hansen.

The supermarket chain added that excellent availability throughout saw record levels of trade across the 375 stores in their estate.

In the 6 weeks to 6 January, same-store sales excluding fuel jumped 9.5% at the group, compared with the same period 12 months earlier.

The trading update follows that of Sainsbury’s who announced festive sales were up 3.7% and Tesco’s were up 3.1%.

Chief executive Marc Bolland said he was delighted with the group’s performance and we welcomed significantly more customers to our stores and they were well served with attractive offers and great fresh food.

Mr Bolland added that the good performance is proof that our rigorous focus on freshness, service and value is striking a chord with shoppers.

Morrisons said it is confident that full-year profits will be at the higher end of analysts forecasts. However, the supermarket chain warned it was cautious about the outlook but believes that our strong value credentials will serve us well in these conditions.