Sainsbury's chief Justin King has changed the chain’s status from “recovering” to “recovered” following a better-than-expected rise in sales for the January to March period.
Like-for-like sales - excluding petrol - were up by 5.3 per cent and King told BBC Radio 5 Live that the fifth consecutive quarter of “growth on growth” was the most significant signal yet that his recovery plan “Making Sainsbury’s Great Again” is producing long-term benefits.
He added that he had always said that the fifth quarter would be the key indicator of whether the plan had merely put right the wrongs, or was moving Sainsbury’s in an upward direction.
Perhaps most significantly, Sainsbury's said customer numbers grew by more than one million during the last six months, to 16 million a week.
"The sales growth announced today shows that customers are noticing the many improvements we have been making to our business," said King.
The results fuel speculation that Sainsbury’s could soon regain the number two slot it surrendered to Asda a few years ago. The most recent figures from TNS gave Sainsbury a 16.2 per cent market share, compared with 16.6 per cent for Asda, against last year's figures of 16 per cent and 16.8 per cent respectively.
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