Thursday 09 May 2019 8:54 am | Updated: Wednesday 05 June 2019 9:05 am

Morrisons records 14th quarter of growth despite hit from political uncertainty

Morrisons took a hit from British political uncertainty in the first quarter of the financial year, it revealed today, as its sales growth slowed to put it behind major rival Tesco.

Excluding fuel, like-for-like sales grew 2.3 per cent in the quarter, Morrisons said, a slowdown from 3.6 per cent in the first three months of last year.

The growth comes in just below analysts’ forecasts of 2.5 per cent growth, as political and economic uncertainty continued to hit consumer confidence, the company said.

Shares were down slightly, by 0.23 per cent this morning to 213.1p.

However, it was also the supermarket's 14th quarter of consecutive sales growth.

“Growth is largely being driven by Morrisons’ wholesale offering and this will likely remain the case over the next few months; although, there will be high hopes for its daily store offering,” said Brewin Dolphin senior investment manager Stephen Martin.

The result and recent figures from Sainsbury's and Tesco “shows there is still life in the old supermarket brands yet”, he added.

Alongside its results Morrisons announced it was ending its exclusive partnership with Ocado, which has run online deliveries for Morrisons.

It comes as Ocado takes full control of the companies’ shared warehouse, after a fire ripped through one of the online supermarket’s facilities in February. Morrisons will return to the Erith warehouse in February 2021, giving Ocado time to repair its Andover site.

“We are pleased to be helping our partner in times of need after the recent fire. We will keep growing Morrisons.com for our customers and save some cost, returning to [Erith] when it is more mature,” said chief executive David Potts.

“Our new agreement allows us to have more than one digital partner, and opens the way for significant potential opportunities and partnerships in this important growth area for Morrisons.”