Sainsbury’s reports slowing growth

Sainsbury’s has reported slowing sales growth for the 16 weeks to 3 October.

The supermarket saw like for like sales up 4.6%, excluding fuel, compares with 7% in the previous quarter.

The supermarket warns that growth will continue to slow in coming months.

Justin King, Sainsbury’s chief executive says: “Our performance in the first half continues to show good progress as we also invest for the future. While we expect market growth to slow in the coming months due to reduced inflation, the universal appeal of our focus on quality and value leaves us well positioned going forward.”

Sainsbury’s non-food range is growing at three-times the rate of its food offer and King is “pleased” with the progress of the non-food range the supermarket launched online in July.

Its online grocery offer saw growth of 20% during the period.

During the quarter, Sainsbury’s opened 12 convenience stores, and 19 supermarkets and says it is on track to increase store space by 15% by March 2011.

Yesterday, rival supermarket Tesco reported UK like for like sales up 2.7%. Tesco also revealed pre-tax profits up 1.5% on last year to  £1.42bn and group sales up 8.3% to £30.4bn.

retail, financial