Evidence is growing that Morrisons is gaining sales momentum, according to leading retail analyst JP Morgan.
And the Yorkshire-based chain is set to benefit from the strategy of one of its high-street rivals. “Morrisons can benefit from Somerfield’s endgame,” said JP Morgan, adding that Somerfield, in its opinion, has around seven million square feet of space “up for grabs”. Given the right terms, “much of this space might be of interest to Morrisons,” said a briefing.
The 6.4 per cent growth attributed to Morrisons in the latest reported TNS period made it the fastest growing UK major across the four weeks to November 4. JP Morgan called this “a remarkable feat given that Morrison's space growth is slight and it lacks the fast non-food growth of peers”. This was Morrison's second strong TNS reading in a row.
The analyst goes as far as saying that Morrison is outperforming Tesco, once the benefit of extensions and second year uplifts is stripped out of the Tesco like for like numbers. “We believe [Tesco’s] underlying performance is quite pedestrian,” it said.
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