The UK’s biggest supermarket chain this morning announced pre-tax profits in the six months to August 25 were 2 per cent higher than the same period a year before.
They came in at £564 million for the retail giant, with like-for-like sales up 2.3 per cent.
Group sales rose 12.5 per cent to £28.3 billion, up from £25.2 billion for the same period a year before.
Tesco also managed to reduce its net debt by 4.1 per cent, down to £3.126 million.
The retailer, which operates over 3,400 stores in the UK, cited its UK and Booker sales as one of the reasons for the boost in half year figures.
Tesco UK like-for-like sales were up 2.3 per cent across the first half, with Booker like-for-like sales rising 14.7 per cent.
“We have made a good start to the year. The step up in Q2 is driven mainly by the UK & ROI and delivers our eleventh consecutive quarter of growth,” said chief executive Dave Lewis in light of the results.
“At the same time, we have made further strategic progress. We completed our merger with Booker in March and are delighted with performance so far. We announced a strategic alliance with Carrefour in July which goes live this month. And we are now more than half-way through the biggest own brand re-launch in our nearly 100-year history, including a significant investment in over 300 new ‘Exclusively at Tesco’ products at market-leading prices.”
“We are firmly on track to deliver our medium-term ambitions and are continuing to improve the quality and value of our offer for customers in all of our markets. In doing so, we are well-positioned to deliver strong, sustainable returns for shareholders.”
Tesco added that it remains “firmly on track” to deliver on its targets set out in October 2016 of reducing costs by £1.5 billion, generating £9 billion of retail cash and to improve group operating margins by between 3.5 per cent and four per cent by 2019-2020.
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