LONDON (Reuters) – Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, on Wednesday beat its guidance by reporting total adjusted retail operating profit of 1.99 billion pounds ($2.74 billion) after seeing “exceptionally strong” sales during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The retailer reported a 6.3% rise in group like-for-like sales, including a 7.7% lift in its core British market. UK online surged 77% to 6.3 billion pounds as it doubled capacity to 1.5 million slots a week.
Operating profit, however, fell 14.7% as the company incurred costs in adapting to the pandemic.
Chief Executive Ken Murphy said Tesco had shown incredible strength and agility.
“While the pandemic is not yet over, we’re well-placed to build on the momentum in our business,” he said.
It said that while some of the additional sales volumes would fall away as COVID-19 restrictions ease, it expected a strong recovery in profitability and retail free cash flow as the majority of the costs incurred in the pandemic would not be repeated.
($1 = 0.7257 pounds)
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Kate Holton)
