Marks & Spencer hails festive sales surge
Marks & Spencer has posted a strong increase in food, clothing and home sales in the 13 weeks to 31 December.
The company said its investment in value helped food sales to rise by 6.3% on a like-for-like basis. Its top tier M&S Collection range also performed well with sales growing by over 20%. The food business generated its largest ever Christmas sales of over £80 million on 23 December due to improved availability and strong sell-through of seasonal lines including turkeys.
Meanwhile like-for-like clothing and home sales climbed by 8.6% with store and online sales increasing by 12.8% and 0.7% respectively. M&S generated particularly strong sales growth in menswear, formalwear and partywear in the period, and sales of third party brands rose by around 50%.
Stuart Machin, M&S chief executive, said: “M&S Food outperformed the market on volume and value in the critical four-week Christmas period for the second year running and reached its highest ever recorded market share. Clothing and home delivered another outstanding performance, maintaining its market leadership position with its highest market share in seven years.”
With total sales increasing by 9.7% to £3.3 billion in the period, the strong performance means that M&S has reiterated full year profit guidance set out in its interim results in November.
Machin added: “Given the inflationary pressures impacting our customers and our business, M&S is taking action to structurally reduce costs and reinforce our customer proposition. Our singular focus is on delivering the M&S Reshaped programme to drive growth and value creation as the UK’s leading omnichannel retailer. This performance across both our businesses provides confidence in delivering our full year results.“
