Sainsbury's Christmas clothing expected to boost sales

Sainsbury's has revealed an acceleration in sales, with Tu Clothing sales up by 1.3% during the first half, benefitting from stronger Q2 sales growth of 8.3%. Looking ahead, its Christmas clothing ranges are outperforming last year.

The UK’s second largest supermarket firm said group revenues increased by 2.3% to £17.2 billion for the 28 weeks to September 14, compared with the same period a year earlier.

{re-tax profits dropped by 51% to £76 million because of the impact of the restructuring of its financial services division through a number of major sales. Its total underlying pre-tax profit was up 4.7% to £356 million.

As for Tu Clothing, significant improvements in availability and style have driven market share gains and a strong performance in Womenswear over the summer, with sales growth of 10% in Q2.

The Autumn/Winter range is benefitting from its "renewed focus on design" and its Christmas clothing ranges are already performing significantly ahead of last year. Looking ahead, Sainsbury's plans to improve its essentials range as well as its kids and babywear offering.

Simon Roberts, Chief Executive of Sainsbury’s, said: "Our food business is going from strength to strength and we’re making the biggest market share gains in the industry, with continued strong volume growth.

"With strong momentum and increasing confidence in the strength of our grocery offer, we’re now investing to bring the best of Sainsbury’s to more people in more locations.

"As we head into the festive season, there is real energy and excitement at Sainsbury’s and Argos and we’re expecting another strong performance."

Looking ahead, the business said it is "confident of delivering strong profit growth in the full year, with continued leverage from Sainsbury’s grocery volume growth and a stronger Argos H2 performance."

It expects its underlying operating profit to sit between between £1.010 million and £1.060 million, up by between 5-10%.