Tesco experiences poor Christmas trading

Supermarket giant Tesco said it had suffered its worst Christmas trading since the early 1990s, describing conditions as ‘challenging‘ as a result of the global economic slowdown.

The UK’s largest supermarket group, with a 30% market share, said like-for-like UK sales, excluding petrol, increased 2.5% in the seven weeks to 10 January.

Total group sales grew by 11.6% during the same period, boost by overseas growth as Tesco benefited from international sales, which were up by 32.7%. Sales in Asia were up 43%, while European sales were up 24%. The supermarket giant operates in 13 countries.

The news comes just a few days after rival supermarket, Sainsbury’s, said it had experienced its ‘best ever Christmas’.

According to Sainsbury’s, its trade was boosted by a high demand for its “basics” range, which saw sales increase 40% from 12 months ago.

However, despite the gloom, Tesco has announced plans to create 10,000 new jobs this year. Yesterday, Britain’s fourth-largest supermarket Morrisons, announced plans to create 5,000 jobs this year.

Meanwhile, Tesco said its finance arm, Tesco Personal Finance, was performing well with 1,000 savers a day opening accounts over the last few weeks.

In related news, figures from the British Retail Consortium revealed that like-for-like sales in December on the High Street were down 3.3% compared with a year ago while total sales fell 1.4%.

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