Tesco consolidates market dominance
Group sales up by 17.5 per cent
November 25 2003
Tesco has further reinforced its market leadership in UK retail across the third quarter, growing non-food market share and significantly outperforming the market.
With a 12 per cent share of total UK retail sales already, Tesco’s group sales for the fourteen weeks to November 15 grew by 17.5 per cent, with total UK sales for up 14.6 per cent. This was boosted by a 4.3 per cent from the T&S Stores convenience chain, acquired at the start of the year.
Around 80 T&S outlets have now been coverted to the Tesco Express format, with the revamped stores showing an average sales increase of 80 per cent.
UK like-for-like sales were up 6.9 per cent. Tesco said non-food sales have continued to develop, with its clothing offer growing at more than six times the market rate, with sales up 34 per cent in the quarter.
Tesco’s international sales grew by 31 per cent in the third quarter, with all countries where it operates seeing growth “despite some tough trading conditions”. Tesco will have 189 hypermarkets operating outside the UK by the end of the year.
The company has acknowledged that the high rates of growth it has seen this year are likely to moderate. Finance director Andrew Higginson told news agency Reuters: “We would expect a return to more normal levels of trading in the future.”
