Sainsbury's laments toughest Christmas

Source: Daily Mail, LondonJan.倉 09--Disappointing Christmas trading caused J Sainsbury to warn it will miss its annual sales targets.Britain's third-biggest supermarket managed to avoid breaking its record of 36 quarters of consecutive growth, posting sales up 0.2pc over the festive period, boosted by its convenience stores and online trading.While Sainsbury's is expected to be the strongest performer of the Big Four grocers, its third-quarter sales were well down on the 0.9pc rise seen for the same period last year.Sainsbury's is expected to outshine Tesco, but lag behind the food division of Marks & Spencer, where sales are thought to have grown by 2pc.Both Tesco and M&S report figures today. Share in online grocer Ocado, which reports next week, soared to an all-time high yesterday, up 11.73pc or 53.9p to 513.5p.Sainsbury's, which said it had not lost market share, blamed shoppers spending less in supermarkets for the first time in 30 years for shrinking the overall market.This came as smaller rival Waitrose posted a 3.1pc rise in sales for a shorter five-week period, and the Co-op claimed to have beaten Sainsbury's performance, with sales of its food business up 1pc for the past 13 weeks due to its growing network of stores.Sainsbury's had predicted annual sales growth of between 1pc and 1.5pc and said this would now come in slightly below 1pc. Chief executive Justin King said: 'We have beaten expectation ? people thought we would be negative today. We always like to hit our own 24小時迷你倉nternal expectations and can have relative success but absolute failure.'Sainsbury's (down 8.9p to 360p) said sales of its premium Taste The Difference own-brand products were up 10pc and its convenience business grew 18pc. Online grocery sales increased more than 10pc, boosted by a new website. It also said its clothing and home furnishings department saw growth of 10pc. King blamed the slowdown in growth on the hot summer when shoppers splashed out more enjoying the sunshine but reined in spending over October and November as they also saved up for Christmas.He also said Christmas was one of the toughest trading periods he had ever seen. 'I think... overall the market was flat or even in slight decline,' he said. 'That's the first time [that has happened] in 30 years amid what was the toughest backdrop that has ever been.'The economy has been recovering and there has been more jobs, but the vast majority of people have less money.'We expect customers to spend cautiously in the few months following Christmas, in an attempt to rebalance the household finances.'He also appeared to round on rival supermarket Lidl and the other discounters for highlighting a handful of premium products in their advertising campaigns which he said was not representative of the quality of the whole range. 'It's a disproportionate story,' he said.Copyright: ___ (c)2014 Daily Mail (London, ) Visit the Daily Mail (London, ) at .dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉旺角