Sabtu, 28 April 2012

Morrisons sales fall as it 'suffers in discount war'

Morrisons sales fall as it 'suffers in discount war'

By Neil Craven

PUBLISHED: 16:14 EST, 28 April 2012 | UPDATED: 16:14 EST, 28 April 2012

Morrisons will this week reveal the worst sales growth for almost a decade after many of its customers defected to discount rivals.

The supermarket giant is set to announce on Thursday that like-for-like sales, a key indicator of a retailer’s performance, have dropped for the first time since its disastrous acquisition of Safeway in 2004.

It means Morrisons becomes the second big supermarket after Tesco to face an underlying sales decline.

Decline: Morrisons like-for-like sales have dropped for the first time since its disastrous acquisition of Safeway in 2004

Decline: Morrisons like-for-like sales have dropped for the first time since its disastrous acquisition of Safeway in 2004

Meanwhile, Home Retail, owner of Argos and Homebase, will this week reveal a 60 per cent drop in profits to about £100million.

Analysts have pushed for a restructuring but shareholders, including fund manager Schroders which owns a fifth of the shares, are broadly supportive of chief executive Terry Duddy’s strategy.

New Argos managing director John Walden is not expected to unveil his strategy until October.

Morrisons has been lauded for improving its stores and food quality. But sources said customers in some areas had been put off and had switched to Aldi, Lidl, Netto and convenience stores.

Morrisons chief executive Dalton Philips said in January that this year would be characterised by ‘very low like-for-like sales’ growth.

Clive Black at stockbroker Shore Capital told Financial Mail he was concerned about Morrisons’ drop in market share. ‘Some people will question whether the pace of change is fast enough,’ he added.

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Let them burn they've been ripping us off for decades with their cartels. Well things are really starting to bite and the big boys are feeling the pain. I'm loving every minute of this what with France about to nail sarko and Greek elections along with Spain about to go down the pan it's the best show in town, we'll all be living like Mad-Max shortly.

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Aldi and Iceland foe me. Same stuff, no thrills, fraction of the cost. Why pay more to the big rip off supermarkets ?

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Staff in Morrisons are not very helpful and the Cafe plates and cutlery is never really clean. When you complain very politely they make you feel very unwanted plus all the fake discounts people are waking up to not being rip off anymore.

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