Sainsbury (LON:SBRY) released an upbeat full year report today, which showed improvements in financial performance with the high street retailer saying that it has outperformed the market, increasing its share.
However, the group was cautious about the market environment in the current financial year.
Total sales in the year to 19 March 2011 rose 7.1 percent to £22.94 billion during the year, while total sales excluding fuel were up 4.9 percent and like for like sales increased 2.3 percent. As a result, underlying pre-tax profits climbed 9 percent to £665 million; underlying basic earnings per share surged 10.9 percent to 26.5 pence.
Based on the improved financial performance, Sainsbury decided to raise the full year dividend by 6.3 percent to 15.1 pence.
“Despite a challenging economic environment, our strategy of universal appeal, underpinned by our values, has enabled us to deliver a good sales and profit performance. We continue to gain market share,” said chairman of Sainsbury David Tyler.
On the operational side, Sainsbury has managed to draw in more shoppers with weekly customer transactions having increased by one million to 21 million over the year, while inflationary increases were fully offset by cost savings.
However, the outlook offered in the report was mixed with Sainsbury expecting an uncertain economic environment in the coming year. The retailer expressed confidence that its “strategy, alongside continued strong operational performance, will enable the business to make further good progress”.
Sainsbury’s is the UK’s third largest supermarket chain behind Tesco (LON:TSCO) and Asda, which is owned by Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT).