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Low Christmas prices boost supermarkets

Discount supermarket Aldi reported its best ever Christmas trading period

Low Christmas prices boost supermarkets

The UK’s supermarket chains focused on low Christmas prices during the festive period to remain competitive in a “subdued” market.

Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer (M&S) and Aldi released their seasonal trading reports last week and all reported growth in their grocery businesses during the festive period.

Tesco UK chief executive Dave Lewis said its 0.2% annual total sales growth in the period was helped by “an attractive customer offer”. He said: “In a subdued UK market, we performed well, delivering our fifth consecutive Christmas of growth.

“Customers benefitted from lower prices – with a typical basket of 21 festive products in the weeks before Christmas being £2.28 cheaper year on year.”

Read more: Christmas

Sainsbury’s, which saw 0.4% total annual sales growth in its grocery business for its third quarter ending 4 January, added it was “the only traditional retailer to show growth in value own-label sales over the [Christmas] period”.

However, despite “most prices the same or lower than last year”, like-for-like sales at Morrisons for the 22 weeks ending 5 January fell by 1.7%.

Like-for-like food sales for the 13 weeks ending 28 December at M&S grew by 1.4%, while Aldi said it was its best Christmas trading period due to its low prices on “festive essentials”.

Year-on-year sales at the discounter rose by 7.9% to £1bn for the four weeks ending 24 December.

Read more: Seasonal trends

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