Tesco said price pressures on supermarkets continue to ease as it reported its profits had more than doubled over the past year.
Chief executive Ken Murphy said inflationary pressures had “lessened substantially” but noted that “things are still difficult for many customers”.
He said the supermarket had “worked hard” to reduce prices, including “doubling down” on its Aldi Price Match offer and Clubcard Prices promotion, which is available on around 8,000 products each week.
Tesco revealed its pre-tax profits had skyrocketed 159% to £2.29bn in the 12 months to 29 February, up from £882m last year.
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Group sales excluding VAT and fuel surged 7.4% to £61bn, with UK like-for-likes up 7.7% “driven by a strong performance across all formats and channels”.
UK food sales jumped 9.3% with volume growth reported in the second half of the year, while home and clothing sales dipped 3.4%, which it attributed to “the impact of strategic ranging decisions” such as exiting low returning categories like large electricals.
Murphy said: “Customers are choosing to shop more at Tesco, which is reflected in growing market share as they respond to the improvements we’ve made to the value and quality of our products.”
He said the supermarket had cut prices on more than 4,000 products by an average of 12% and Clubcard sales penetration stepped up by a further 8 percentage points year-on-year to 85%
“Customer perception of the quality of our products is growing ahead of the market and we continue to win customers from premium retailers, with sales of Tesco Finest now exceeding £2bn.”
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