Britain’s biggest retailer Tesco on Thursday, January 9 reported record sales for the key Christmas season, while Marks & Spencer (M&S) has broken “sales records”. These performances are in line with other distributors in the UK. Meanwhile, Boots has delivered a strong first quarter of its staggered Financial Year, with total comparable retail sales up 8.1% YoY for the three months ended 30 November 2024. The UK’s leading health and beauty retailer saw growth across all categories and channels, on top of a significant increase in the prior year.
In the 19 weeks to January 4, comprising Tesco’s third quarter and Christmas trading period, UK sales jumped 4.6 percent to GBP 17.9 billion (USD 22 billion or EUR 21.32) compared with a year earlier.
Tesco’s market share stands at 28.5%, according to figures from Kantar [1], despite strong competition from low-cost chains, which also presented excellent results over the period: Aldi announced “the best Christmas in its history” and Lidl “record sales”.
“We delivered our biggest ever Christmas,” Tesco’s chief executive Ken Murphy said in a trading statement. “Our strong performance reflects the investments we have made, positioning Tesco as the UK’s cheapest full-line grocer for over two years,” he added.
Marks & Spencer, for its part, saw its sales increase by 5.9% in its British and Irish stores, to 3.8 billion pounds over the quarter.
“This was another good Christmas for M&S, building on a strong performance in the prior year,” said Stuart Machin, Chief Executive. “Sales records were broken across the business, with Food recording its biggest day and Clothing, Home & Beauty online its biggest week, but we’re not complacent – as a growth business it’s our job to break records.”
Like-for-like sales were up 8.9% for Food and 1.9% for Clothing, Home & Beauty.
“M&S looks to be nailing its transition towards a leaner and stronger business,” commented Aarin Chiekrie, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “But competition will remain extremely tough,” he added.
The company said it remains confident in its capacity to make “further progress in the remainder of the year,” but stresses that its outlook remains “uncertain”, particularly due to “higher costs” linked to the tax increases planned in the budget presented at the end of October by the British government.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) on Thursday, January 9, warned that retailers could raise prices by an average of 4.2 percent in the second half of the year owing to the UK government’s tax-raising budget in late 2024. “There is little hope of prices going anywhere but up,” said BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson.
As far as Boots is concerned, the retailer good results were supported by an exceptional Black Friday period, with sales up 20% during the week. “On the Friday itself, boots.com achieved its biggest ever day of sales, with almost five orders per second during its busiest hour. Store sales were also strong. Fragrance, beauty, and Christmas gifts were the top selling categories during Black Friday week both in stores and online with nearly two bottles of fragrance sold every second,” said the company.
Boots’ beauty sales were with up 11% YoY for the quarter, driven by fragrance, premium beauty, and skincare.
