Morrisons bags a strong recovery
Wm Morrisons’ 9.5% rise in like-for-like sales for the six weeks to early January “exceeded even the most bullish City forecasts”, said Richard Fletcher in The Daily Telegraph. Market leader Tesco could only manage 3.1%.
Morrisons hasn’t announced a sales rise like this for almost four years, just before it acquired Safeway, said Richard Fletcher in The Daily Telegraph. The merger was a “car crash”, but now the group “is stealing back the market share it has squandered in recent years” with Morrisons’ market capitalisation – if not yet its sales – now ahead of J Sainsbury.
What’s behind the recovery?
The sales leap shows what went wrong, said Lex in the FT. Morrisons alienated many Safeway customers “by emphasising low prices”, but under new chief executive Marc Bolland, it has since reversed this error. An £18m advertising campaign at Christmas featuring Lulu and Denise van Outen – four times the previous year’s outlay – appears to have been “money well spent”, said Tempus in The Times.
Coupled with its special promotions, Morrisons attracted four million new customers, mostly in the south “where the company has shallower roots”. Founder Sir Ken Morrison’s 40 years of success had been overshadowed by the failed merger, said Fletcher. Now, he will be able to step down in May on a high note.
MRW: 12m change 10%
