Ocado sales up 15% in December

Online grocery specialist Ocado Group said gross sales were up 14.8% in December versus last year, the company said on Wednesday.However, analysts expected growth to be nearer 16.5%.The FTSE 250 group said the seven days before Christmas saw a 40% increase in items sold for Ocado.com and Morrisons.com compared to last year at its customer fulfilment centres.The busiest day of the month registered £6m sales, up 15% from the previous year, but Ocado did not provide total revenues figures.Chief executive Tim Steiner said: "Our focus remained on delivering the highest service levels at this very important time for customers, while offering the widest range at competitive prices."Shore Capital analysts, noting that there was no indication of the voucher participation by Ocado year-on-year and wondering why information was only given for four weeks after last year a six-week period was reported, gave a 'sell' recommendation at 410p target price as they "continue to have a low opinion of the Ocado business model".However, counter to some speculation that Ocado may lose Waitrose as a client in the near future with Waitrose able to serve notice on its arrangement from September 2015, ShoreCap's Clive Black is fairly confident this will not happen. "The reason that we do not expect change in the near-term relationship with Waitrose is not least because Ocado arguably funds the development of Waitrose.com through its commercial fees, noting as we do that Waitrose.com continues to grow at a much faster rate than Ocado; online sales on an admittedly lower sales base for Waitrose grew by nearly 30% over the festive period."Shares were down 2.27% to 400.6p on Wednesday at 09:29.