A sign is displayed near a Sainsbury’s Local store in London, Britain, January 2, 2025. REUTERS
LONDON, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Sainsbury’s Britain’s second-largest supermarket group, on Friday reported a 3.4% rise in underlying sales for the key Christmas quarter with strong grocery sales offset by a weaker performance in general merchandise.
The group, which trails only Tesco by market share, said it still expected to deliver full-year retail underlying operating profit of “more than 1 billion pounds” ($1.34 billion) for its year to March 2026, versus 1.04 billion pounds made in 2024/25. Sainsbury’s said grocery sales rose 5.4% over the 16 weeks to January 3 year-on-year.
However, general merchandise and clothing sales within Sainsbury’s fell 1.1% and sales were down 1.0% in the Argos business.
Industry data published on Tuesday showed Sainsbury’s ended 2025 with a UK grocery market share of 16.3%, up 30 basis points on the year.
Sainsbury’s update, following one from Tesco on Thursday, confirmed that the two biggest supermarket groups are continuing to outperform the wider UK retail market with their focus on value at a time of subdued consumer confidence, still high inflation and weakening employment.
Reporting by James Davey; editing by Sarah Young
