Tesco enjoys robust Q1 sales

Shoppers at Tesco helped to produce buoyant figures in the first quarter of 2005, the retailer has revealed.

07:08 25 June 2005

Shoppers at Tesco helped to produce buoyant figures in the first quarter of 2005, the retailer has revealed.

The supermarket group is expected to win more market share albeit at a slower place going forward, analysts forecasted, with Tesco cleaving more of a chunk of the growth in the grocery market. Annual growth in groceries hangs around the three per cent mark.

Tesco pockets a third of all money spent in supermarkets at present.

Total group sales neared 15 per cent in the 12 weeks to May 21st, Tesco said.

CEO Sir Terry Leahy said the firm had made "a solid start" to a "challenging" year.

But Tesco's apparent relentless growth is not without its critics.

Critical of Tesco's rollout of its Express convenience stores, private shareholder Donovan Winter discerned a "creeping megalomania" that was "sucking the lifeblood out of local enterprises".

"Where do you see a local family butcher, or a fishmonger or greengrocer? They are being driven out of business. Local people are losing the personal service."

Eight groups, including Friends of the Earth and Family Farms Alliance, have launched a website - Tescopoly - to protest against Tesco's dominance.

On Thursday, Sainsbury, the UK's third biggest supermarket, reported like-for-like sales growth of 1.3 per cent for the first quarter.