Morrisons Q4

Morrisons improved availability in its stores in Q4

Morrisons has delivered its strongest quarter for almost four years following a year of “urgent reinvigoration and positive progress”.

Like-for-like sales increased by 4.9% to £3.8bn in the final quarter of the group’s financial year to 27 October. The result marked eight consecutive quarters of positive like-for-like sales growth.

It’s a significant improvement from the 2.9% growth registered in Q3 and the strongest quarter since the start of 2021.

Revenues for the year ended 4.1% higher at £15.3bn, pushing up underlying EBITDA by 11.2% to £835m, compared with £751m in the previous year.

Morrisons also reduced debt by 40% from its peak as it sold off the petrol forecourts to MFG for £2.5bn during the year and achieved £312m in cost savings.

“This has been a year of urgent reinvigoration and positive progress for Morrisons,” said CEO Rami Baitiéh. “Customer transactions increased, market share grew from Q2 and we saw positive switching from our competitors.

“The improvements across the business have resulted in better availability in our stores, sharper prices, more effective promotions and a strong and growing loyalty scheme. This operational progress is now starting to be reflected in our financial performance.”

Baitiéh added that the More loyalty card was now “firmly established” as a customer favourite after “a stunning year” with linked sales growing from 47% just 18 months ago to 76% now.

“We have introduced a rolling programme of around 2,500 deeply discounted More Card prices, and points are now awarded on every product,” he said. “In the two-week Christmas period around 3.5 million Morrisons Fivers were redeemed by customers.”