M&S fourth quarter figures buck retail trends

By Erin Smith

Published: 02 April, 2015

Marks and Spencer Group fourth quarter financial results were released today showing total UK sales increased 2.7% and food sales increased 3.7%.

The results were as of the 13 weeks ending 28 March 2015. Like-For-Like sales increased 0.7%.

"We have strong progress over the quarter. In food we delivered another excellent performance, with sales growth ahead of the market," said Marc Bolland, chief executive officer roof Marks & Spencer.

According to Kantar Worldpanel's March retail figures overall supermarket growth was the same as February at 1.1% with M&S outperforming the market.

Supermarket retailers have have incredible challenges over the past year due to price deflation.

According to this month's Kantar report the numbers show that price deflation is picking up pace.

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Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: "Prices are still falling but coming at down an even faster rate. Our Baskets of 75,000 like for like products is not 1.6% cheaper than it was last year. The average household is spending just shy of £1000 over 12 weeks, so that is a savings of about £16 each. Sum up all this £16s and that i£400 million take out the supermarket tills."

Despite these trends M&S has been able to deliver positive growth in a challenging and competitive market.

"Food sales grew both at total and like-for-like level, as our specialist positioning continued to deliver results, in a difficult, deflationary quarter for the food market," said Bolland.

The specialist promotions that M&S have been able to capitalise on are holidays, such as Valentine's Day. "We had a record Valentine's Day and launched over 350 new products over the quarter," said Bolland.

The results are an improvement for the retailer, which suffered from flat sales in the third quarter.