Tesco toasts international success

Maturing international business is said to be behind Tesco’s recent positive sales report, which confirmed that foreign sales grew by 15.7% and group sales by 8.8%.

Asia posted particularly strong results for the supermarket, with 23.4% growth – a result which was largely fuelled by investments made during the recession and a spate of new store openings, including its fourth Lifespace mall in Anshan, China, according to the supermarket.

In Europe (and excluding petrol), all of the group’s European businesses achieved positive like-for-like sales for the first time in three years during the 13-week period which ended on 27 November.

Hungary and Turkey were highlighted as being particularly strong improvers. Sales were also up in the US by 38.5%, partly driven by a successful Thanksgiving period.

In the UK, where Tesco’s total sales are up 5% (including VAT and excluding petrol) and where like-for-like sales improved by 1.5%, a number of new stores have also opened, creating thousands of jobs.

The supermarket’s chief executive, Terry Leahy, said: “Our continued investment in the shopping trip and our new space opening programme across our markets are giving us good sales momentum and market share gains.  

“As the global economic recovery gathers pace, our broad-based strategy, combined with our ongoing focus on productivity savings, is enabling us to maintain growth in a sustainable, profitable way – delivering value for customers and for shareholders”.

Jane Parkinson, 13.12.2010