Supermarket retailer Tesco registers strong growth in Q1
20 Jun '07
3 min read
“We've made a good start to the year across the group. International is delivering particularly strong growth; pushing on well with both new store development and the integration of the stores we acquired last year and our plans to open in the United States later this year are well on track."
"The UK has made solid progress in the first quarter with good growth in our core food categories and further investment in improving our offer for customers including last week's announcement of £270 million of price cuts.”
Group sales for the thirteen weeks ending 26th May 2007 increased by 10.0%, driven by all four parts of our strategy. Our expanding international operations have delivered a strong start to the year, the core UK business has shown solid growth, our non-food ranges helped by the launch of Tesco Direct have performed well in more challenging markets and our retailing services are continuing to attract new customers.
International sales were up 24.6% at constant exchange rates and by 22.4% at actual rates. This included a particularly strong performance in Asia, where sales grew by 32% at constant rates, benefiting for the first time from the consolidation of our operations in China.
We are on track to deliver a substantial programme of new store openings this year, which will provide more than 7 million square feet of new selling space in International. At the same time, the conversion of the acquired Leader Price stores in Poland and the Makro business in Malaysia is going well.