Supermarket giant Tesco not immune to slowdown

Latest figures from Britain’s largest supermarket, Tesco, have revealed a 2% rise in like-for-like UK sales over the 3-month period to 22 November – marking its worst performance since the 1990s.

UK like-for-like sales have halved since this time last year, when the retailer announced a 4% growth.

The supermarket giant has monopolised the British grocery market recently and has a 30% share of the market.

However, according to a report in The Times today, figures from TNS Worldpanel suggest that in the 12 weeks to 2 November, £22 million of spending was switched from Tesco to Asda, £10 million from Tesco to Aldi and almost another £10 million to Morrisons.

Meanwhile, Tesco’s stock has lost 40% of its value in the last year alone.

However, according to Tesco, its new discount range has helped it attract an additional 300,000 customers a week into its stores.

Commenting on the figures, Terry Leahy, the group’s chief executive, said we are pleased with our progress but we are also realistic. The current economic climate and the strain this is putting on consumers everywhere, is something that all businesses are feeling, including ours.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Tesco’s Fresh & Easy brand is performing well and its first stores have shown sales growth.

Tesco opened its first US store under its new green and white Fresh & Easy banner in the city of Hemet which is about 75 miles east of Los Angeles just over a year ago.

Tesco said it is pleased to have chosen not to accelerate its expansion in the US due to ‘the severity of the economic slowdown in some geographic markets there‘.

Meanwhile, sales grew by 29.4% in Asia, boosted by its acquisition of Homever in May, a 36-strong discount chain in South Korea.

Tesco has a workforce of 440,000 in approximately 4,000 stores across 14 countries.

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