US supermarket chain Safeway has reported a sharp fall in second-quarter profit as fierce competition from retail giant Wal-Mart continued to hurt earnings.
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California-based Safeway said second-quarter net income fell to US$161m, or 36 cents a share, from $309.3m, or 62 cents a share, in the year-ago period.
Excluding results from its Dominick’s supermarket chain, which is now considered a discontinued operation, profit was 45 cents a share. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected profit of 47 cents a share.
Sales for the quarter increased slightly to $7.74bn from $7.51bn a year earlier, mainly due to new stores. Identical store sales, meanwhile, fell 0.5%.

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By GlobalData