Major supermarkets set for festive fillip

Britain’s big four supermarkets are expected to have shown resilience in the battle for Christmas shoppers as sales impetus at smaller rivals Aldi and Lidl slows, City analysts say.

They predict Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Asda will have all done better than in previous years when the two German discounters grabbed market share.

Clive Black, of Shore Capital, said: “What will be more established as a trend to our minds is the better performance overall from the majors, with Tesco and Morrisons set to lead the way with possibly positive like-for-like sales whilst Sainsbury’s will have Argos in tow – the former could be negative, the latter positive.

“Asda may just be showing signs of turning the corner after a tough 30 months.”

Dave Lewis, boss of Tesco, and his counterpart at Morrisons, David Potts, have already shown signs of turning around their businesses with positive same-floorspace sales.

Independent retail analyst Nick Bubb said: “The Tesco and Morrisons share prices have done pretty well [up 38 and 55 per cent respectively], reflecting the recovery in their trading momentum, which has coincided with slowing momentum for Aldi and Lidl.”

Black added: “We think it [Christmas trading] will be less spectacular for Lidl in particular than the last few years as the chain has seen a big deterioration in sales momentum in recent months.”

He forecast that other supermarket winners over the festive period will have been the Co-op and Iceland. 0 Dave Lewis, chief executive of Tesco