Sainsbury’s is set to increase staff pay this year as it revealed it won grocery market share for the fifth consecutive Christmas.
The supermarket giant will split a 5% pay rise for its hourly-paid staff into two separate rises in March and August, which it said will “allow us to navigate a challenging cost environment”.
It comes as Sainsbury’s enjoyed its “biggest-ever Christmas” as sales rose 3.7% for the 16 weeks to 4 January, and 3.8% for the festive period covering 6 weeks to 4 January.
Grocery sales increased 4.1% over the quarter, and spiked 3.8% over Christmas, as volume sales were 6% higher than two years ago.
Sainsbury’s general merchandise sales slipped 0.1% during the quarter, but jumped 3.4% during the festive period.
Promotions over Black Friday and Christmas helped to boost Argos sales, which nudged up 1.1% over the six weeks but dipped 1.4% during the third quarter.
Looking ahead, the grocery giant, which was crowned as one of the Christmas winners by Kantar, said it expected to deliver full-year profit in the midpoint of its £1.01bn to £1.06bn guidance range, representing growth of around 7%.
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Sainsbury’s CEO Simon Roberts noted more than half of its big Christmas baskets contained a Taste the Difference product, helping the premium range deliver 16% sales growth.
The retailer also saw record numbers of customers shopping Nectar Prices, which extended to over 9,000 products in the run up to the holiday and helped to save an average of £26 per shop.
Roberts said: “We have won grocery market share for the fifth consecutive Christmas, with more customers choosing Sainsbury’s for their big shop.
“Driven by our leading combination of quality, value and service, we have achieved seven consecutive quarters of volume performance ahead of the market and further accelerated our two-year volume growth.”
He added: “The strength of our customer service and operational performance stood us apart in delivering our biggest ever Christmas.
“Customers shopped later than ever and we achieved our highest ever sales in the final days before Christmas.”
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