5th Dec 2006 07:02
Tesco PLC05 December 2006 THIRD QUARTER TRADING STATEMENT TESCO MAINTAINS STRONG GROWTH The Group maintained strong growth during the third quarter, driven by all fourparts of our strategy. The core UK business delivered another strongperformance; in non-food, sales and market share again increased in a subduedmarket; our international operations made further good progress and ourretailing services businesses continued to attract new customers. Strong deflation in petrol prices reduced the headline sales growth rate. Groupsales, excluding petrol, increased by 10.3% in the 13 weeks to 25 November 2006,and by 9.6% including petrol. Excluding petrol, UK like-for-like growth in the quarter was 5.6% and totalsales growth was 8.5%. Including petrol, UK sales grew by 7.4%, withlike-for-like growth of 4.4% and 3.0% from net new stores. Deflation overall was0.1% but excluding petrol, our stores saw inflation of 0.8%, driven by higherenergy costs and increases in market prices for produce and meat. We expectthese inflationary pressures to subside in the months ahead. This year's programme of new UK space is on track, with almost a third of thetotal footage opening in the fourth quarter. We opened seven new stores lastweek, including our flagship environment store in Wick, which is expected tohave a 50% smaller carbon footprint than comparable stores. Non-food sales continued to see double-digit growth in the period and thesuccessful launch of Tesco Direct strengthened an already good performance intesco.com. International sales in the third quarter increased by 17.9% at constant exchangerates, a similar rate of growth to the first half, and by 17.5% at actual rates.We plan to open over 300 stores with a total of more than 4.5 million squarefeet of sales area in International during the second half this year,representing our largest ever opening programme overseas. Our next trading update will be on 16 January 2007 and will cover the Christmasand New Year period. Contacts: Investor Relations: Steve Webb 01992 644 800 Press: Jonathan Church 01992 644 645 Angus Maitland 020 7379 5151 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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