Strongest LFL growth for three years
Morrisons has today updated investors on its Q1 performance, covering the 13 weeks from October 30th 2023 to January 28th 2024.
Key points
- Group like-for-like (LFL) sales ex-fuel/ex-VAT up 4.6% (2022/23: up 0.1%)
- Total sales ex-fuel £3.9 billion, up by 3.9%
- Strongest quarterly LFL sales growth for three years; seven consecutive quarters of LFL sales improvement
- Three pillars to drive future growth: commercial excellence, operations optimisation and new value creation
- £2.5 billion sale of Petrol Filling Station business to MFG announced in January 2024
- Aldi and Lidl Price Match introduced in February 2024
- Key customer satisfaction metrics improving strongly; complaints more than halved in last 20 weeks
- McColl’s conversion programme nearing completion with over 910 McColl’s stores now converted to Morrisons Dailys; LFL uplift on conversion remains at c. 20% with double digit uplifts in second year
Like-for-like sales growth excluding fuel
Rami Baitiéh, Chief Executive, said:
“In January I outlined our plan to reinvigorate, refresh and strengthen Morrisons as we started our next chapter. Those plans are now in full swing with the whole business engaged in the three key pillars of work that will be the foundation of the future for Morrisons: commercial excellence, operations optimisation and new value creation.
“Across the business we have identified many areas where we can raise our game and make small improvements which collectively will result in a significantly enhanced shopping experience for our customers. Availability, waste, newness, innovation, speed and accuracy are all on an improving trend and our customers are beginning to notice. Our key customer metrics are improving and complaints – which in many ways are the canaries in the retail coalmine – are down almost 60% in the last 20 weeks.
“For longer term and sustainable growth, we have developed new plans for growth in wholesale, convenience, franchise, export markets and global sourcing and we are now moving quickly to implement them. In our franchise business, for example, we have built a new team specifically to accelerate new customer acquisition and recently we have opened, on average, three franchise convenience stores a week and we intend to open many more in the coming months.
“I have been so impressed with the way all our colleagues are embracing the start of our next chapter and I want to thank every one of them for the important part that they are playing in shaping our future. There is a real sense of optimism and renewal running through the whole company as we return to a growth path.”