Sainsbury's posts sixth straight quarter of declining sales

Updated
Sainsbury's Suffers from Food Price War
Sainsbury's Suffers from Food Price War
Sainsbury's posts sixth straight quarter of declining sales
Sainsbury's posts sixth straight quarter of declining sales


A price war and deflation in UK retail is claiming victims in the industry and Sainsbury's is the latest.

Reuters reports that the UK's third largest supermarket has posted a sixth straight quarter of declining sales with the supermarket's first quarter sales at stores open over a year falling 2.1% and, including fuel sales, they were down by as much as 3.7%.

Like its bigger rivals Tesco and Walmart's Asda, Sainsbury's is battling to win back ground lost to discounters Aldi and Lidl.

But all of them are also having to deal with commodity driven industry price deflation

Will Hobbs of Barclays says: "Inflation is certainly playing a big role within the UK food retail space, there's no doubt about that. But it does feel like we may be starting to look through and there may be light at the end of the tunnel."

Sainsbury's shares rose by nearly 5% after the results, having fallen by a quarter over the last year.

On a positive note, its clothing sales and convenience stores are doing well and UK retail sales were up 1.1% in May.

It looks like British consumer spending may almost be back to pre-crisis levels which suggests UK shoppers may finally be ready to start spending again.

Sainsbury's made there way to the top of the list of cheapest supermarkets in the UK at the end of May for the first time in 2015.

The supermarket beat off competition from Asda, Tesco and Morrions to claim to the top spot,


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Sainsbury's Sees 'Challenging' Outlook
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