LONDON, Nov 5 (Reuters) - British retailer Marks & Spencer reported a ninth consecutive quarterly fall inunderlying sales of general merchandise, with its much vauntednew season clothing ranges only managing to slightly slow therate of decline.
The 129-year-old group, which serves 21 million customers aweek from nearly 770 British stores, also posted on Tuesday afall in first-half profit - down for the third year running.
Britain's biggest clothing retailer, which also sellshomewares and food, said sales of non-food products, spanningclothing, footwear and homewares, at stores open over a yearfell 1.3 percent in the 13 weeks to Sept. 28, its fiscal secondquarter.
That compared with analyst forecasts of down 0.4-2.5 percentand a first quarter decline of 1.6 percent.
M&S's food business, which contributes over half of groupsales, is performing much better. Its sales on the same basisrose 3.2 percent versus analyst forecasts of a rise of 3.0-3.2percent.
First-half profit before tax and one off items was 261.6 million pounds.
That was in line with analysts' average forecast of 262million pounds, down from 287.3 million pounds last year.
M&S said its expectations for the full-year were unchanged.