Marks and Spencer see market share rise in food and clothing

Wednesday, 13 July 2011 09:52

Marks and Spencer has bucked the recent high street gloom by posting encouraging quarterly results for the 13 weeks to July 2nd with like-for-like sales excluding VAT increasing by 1.7 per cent.

The results were much as expected by analysts and the increased growth was driven by food sales. Non-food sales experienced no growth, with sales remaining flat but this was an improvement on the fall of 3.9 per cent for non-food like-for-like sales that happened a year ago.

International sales increased by 7.8 per cent and sales for M&S Direct, which includes online sales, showed growth of 13 per cent. The company said its profit guidance for 2011-12 remains unchanged even though it, like many other retailers, started its summer sale early.

Marks and Spencer increased its market share slightly in both the food and clothing sectors. Food sales increased by 3.3 per cent, pushing the companies’ market share up from 3.7 per cent to 3.8 per cent. A spokesman said that this was in part due to the success of promotions such as “Dine In”.

Meanwhile, in the clothing sector M&S posted its 17th consecutive month of market share growth and increased its share of the market from 11.5 per cent to 11.7 per cent.
The results look even better coming after data released by the British Retail Consortium that showed sales of women’s clothing had fallen sharply in June.

Chief executive Marc Bolland said: “Against the uncertain economic backdrop, we are focused on trading through the short term, while building for the long-term growth of the business."

"We expect trading conditions to remain challenging due to pressure on consumers' disposable incomes and higher commodity prices," the company said in a statement released to support the results.

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