Morrisons hails strongest quarterly performance for almost four years
Bradford-headquarter supermarket chain, Morrisons, has reported full year group like-for-like (LFL) sales up 4.1 per cent and quarter four LFL sales up 4.9 per cent.
Publishing its full year and quarter four performance for the 52 and 13 weeks ending 27 October 2024, the business says it has enjoyed its strongest quarter since the start of 2021.
Full year underlying EBITDA was up 11.2 per cent to £835m, while full year total revenue was up 3.8 per cent to £15.3bn; Quarter four up 4.8 per cent to £3.8bn.
Rami Baitiéh, chief executive, said: “This has been a year of urgent reinvigoration and positive progress for Morrisons. Customer transactions increased, market share grew from quarter two and we saw positive switching from our competitors.
“The improvements across the business have resulted in better availability in our stores, sharper prices, more effective promotions and a strong and growing loyalty scheme.
“This operational progress is now starting to be reflected in our financial performance, with full year like-for-like sales up 4.1 per cent and EBITDA up by 11.2 per cent.
“We ended the year particularly strongly with quarter four like-for-like sales up 4.9 per cent – the strongest like-for-like quarter for almost four years.”
Jo Goff, CFO, added: “A year of broad based operational progress has helped to deliver a significantly strengthened Morrisons.
“We delivered a further £150m of progress on our working capital programme in the year, taking the total since the start of the programme to £450m, and have achieved £312m in our cost saving programme in the year.
“Our capital allocation framework remains to firstly invest in our estate and proposition, second to reduce debt and leverage and third to invest prudently in growth. We have a good track record in each of these, and debt is now down 40% from its peak.”
Morrisons also highlighted the continued growth in its convenience store estate, which now stands at over 1,600 stores.
