SUPERMARKET chain Sainsbury’s said today that its promotional offers had paid off – with a 3.4% rise in first quarter sales.

Jun 18 2008 by Henryk Zientek, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Britain’s third biggest supermarket put faith in its “universal appeal” to suit customers on all budgets amid challenging economic conditions.

The 3.4% hike in like-for-like sales, excluding petrol, for the 12 weeks to June 14 shows a slowdown in trade on the 4.1% seen the previous quarter.

However the figure is broadly in line with City expectations.

Sainsbury’s said it saw no let-up in the tough trading environment, but was sticking by its forecast for full-year results.

Soaring fuel prices saw like-for-like sales including petrol rise by 7.3% in the first quarter – up from the 4.4% seen in the same quarter last year.

Sainsbury’s first quarter sales growth was roughly in line with the 3.5% reported by larger rival Tesco earlier this month, but falls short of the 7% increase posted by the UK’s fourth biggest supermarket chain, Morrisons.

Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King said today’s figures were in line with expectations, adding: “The challenging economic environment continued throughout the quarter. However, we are now serving nearly 18m customers a week and have delivered sales growth in line with our expectations.

“Whilst we anticipate that the environment will remain challenging, we operate from a strong financial position and our expectations for the full year remain unchanged.”