{"id":8963,"date":"2023-03-29T15:09:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T15:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/asda-on-track-to-become-second-largest-uk-grocer\/"},"modified":"2023-03-29T15:09:16","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T15:09:16","slug":"asda-on-track-to-become-second-largest-uk-grocer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/asda-on-track-to-become-second-largest-uk-grocer\/","title":{"rendered":"Asda on track to become second largest UK grocer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Retail<\/a><\/p>
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\"Asda\"<\/div>\n
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\/\/<\/span> Asda posts drop in profits thanks to cost price inflation<\/h6>\n
\/\/ <\/span>The grocer remains confident as it focuses on\u00a0price investments and new propositions<\/h6>\n\n

Asda has reported a 24% drop in profits in 2022, which owner Mohsin Issa termed a \u201chighly resilient\u201d performance, as sales start to improve.<\/p>\n

Adjusted EBITDA plunged to \u00a3886m over the year as Issa said it made a \u201cconscious decision to support customers by investing heavily to mitigate the impact of inflation and keep prices as low as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough this contributed to a decline in profitability, it was the right thing to do for our customers and will ultimately help to deliver long-term growth.\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Total sales edged into positive territory by 0.1% in 2022 as Asda\u2019s\u00a0like-for-likes improved throughout the year rising to 5.4% in the final quarter, when it emerged as the best-performing traditional grocer over the Christmas period.<\/p>\n

It said momentum had continued into the new year with like-for-likes up 6.8% in February.<\/p>\n

Issa said it had \u201cmade good progress laying the foundations to restore Asda to the number two position in UK grocery\u201d.<\/p>\n

It has focused on giving customers desirable products at affordable prices and the ability to shop with the grocer whenever and however they like, he said.<\/p>\n\n

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The grocer invested across the year to shield shoppers from inflationary pressures.<\/p>\n

It reduced the prices of more than 100 popular branded and own-branded lines by an average of 12% and locked these until the end of the year to give customers more control over their grocery budgets.<\/p>\n

It also launched Just Essentials in May, a new value range of 300 products designed to keep households running on the tightest of budgets.<\/p>\n

The range has proved a success with over 10 million customers regularly shopping the range in the second half of the year and sales rising 73% year-on-year.<\/p>\n

The grocer also rolled out the Asda Rewards loyalty programme to all stores in August, giving customers the chance to earn pounds rather than points every time they shop.<\/p>\n

More than 4.2m customers are using the app each month and 37% of total sales are now linked to the loyalty programme.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the grocer has been focusing on convenience as its new \u2018Asda Express\u2019 brand launched targeting areas where Asda has a limited presence such as residential locations and transport hubs.<\/p>\n

The first two Asda Express stores opened in Sutton Coldfield and Tottenham Hale at the end of last year, with a further 30 to follow this year, beginning with Calne in May and Romford train station in June.<\/p>\n

To accelerate its growth in the convenience market, Asda acquired 129 convenience stores and attached petrol stations from the Co-op for an enterprise value of \u00a3438m.<\/p>\n

Asda is also investing \u00a328m to increase hourly pay rates for 13,000 distribution colleagues by a minimum of 8%.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Retail<\/a><\/p>
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\/\/ Asda posts drop in profits thanks to cost price inflation \/\/ The grocer remains confident as it focuses on\u00a0price investments and new propositions Asda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}