Asda's chief executive and president has spoken of “very tough” times for food retailers in the UK due to 'price-conscious customers'.
Nevertheless, Andy Clarke confirmed that consumers visited Asda stores in record numbers in the run-up to Christmas -with 4.8 million customers shopping with Asda on 23 December, the supermarket’s biggest trading day of 2013.
Asda won't provide financial results covering the end of 2013, though, until its parent company, Walmart, reports in late February.
Clarke said: 'This was a very tough December for retailers with price-conscious customers leaving it later than ever before to buy presents and do their big Christmas food shop.
'While some retailers hit the panic button early, at Asda we held our nerve and stuck with our simple strategy of no gimmicks, just every day low prices right across the store and online. It meant that customers trusted us to deliver not only on price, but also quality and good honest value.This translated into record footfall, both in store and online.'
He added: 'For the first time ever our grocery home shopping site exceeded £5 million of sales in one day on both 21 and 22 December; and sales through our mobile apps were up over 200 per cent on last year. In fact, apps played a huge part in our online success, with 28 per cent of Grocery Home Shopping sales being ordered through the smartphone app in December.'
Asda is launching a price war this month against its rivals by pledging to spend £50 million to reduce the price of basic shopping items.
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