Morrisons saw its share price fall this morning (7 November) after it booked a drop in like-for-like sales in the third-quarter.
The UK’s fourth-largest supermarket chain said like-for-like sales fell 2.4% in the three months ended 3 November. Total sales were up 1% in the period.
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The company said that sales were hit by “heavy promotional activity” across the industry. Revenues also suffered due to Morrison’s lack of an online grocery offer and its low exposure to the convenience sector, the group added.
Morrisons will start home deliveries in January through a tie-up with Ocado. The retailer is also expanding its chain of ‘M local’ convenience stores, opening 36 in the three month period, bringing its total to 69. It plans to open a further 100 M local’s in the 2014/15 financial year.
“We continue to grow our sales in this tough market whilst making great progress on our strategy to be a multi-channel retailer,” said chief executive, Dalton Philips. “I said at the outset that our online offer would be unmistakably Morrisons and I’m very confident that the service we unveil in January will live up to that promise.”
Morrisons said its full-year outlook remained unchanged but offered a cautious outlook for the trading environment.
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By GlobalData“We expect the market to remain challenging for the remainder of the year and continue to manage the business tightly,” the retailer said.
Morrisons share price was down 0.53% to 279.50 pence at 10:07 GMT.
