Safeway's festive sales falter

12 April 2012

SAFEWAY, which is in the throes of a recovery programme, disappointed City brokers as it reported underlying sales growth of 4.1% for the 12 weeks to 5 January.

The firm, led by chief executive Carlos Criado Perez, said that like Tesco it suffered from a big drop in petrol prices. This, combined with price cuts in its stores resulted in volume growth of 5.4% against 4.3% in the second quarter.

Britain's fourth-largest supermarkets chain said its performance reflected continued growth in customer numbers together with an increasing average spend from existing shoppers.

It is optimistic about the future as it continues to refit stores. Safeway said it has passed the period of maximum disruption from refitting so the benefits of increased sales should begin to outweigh the disruption caused by in-store work.

Safeway opened its first 'megastore' last month to complement its three other formats - superstores, supermarkets and convenience stores.

The shares held at 307p.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in