MKS17 Apr 2012 08:09
Trading summary
In Food, we performed well in a very competitive market and against tough comparatives. We continued our focus on innovation launching c.500 new products in the quarter. Our promotions provided our customers with great value solutions for special times of the year such as Valentine's Day Dine In, which was our record one to date. We held the highest share of the market for healthy eating through the quarter with our Simply Fuller Longer range as the market leader.
In Clothing, menswear, lingerie and kidswear performed strongly. In womenswear our performance was mixed, with some key areas trading well. However, we performed less well in other areas where we were short of stock in a number of best-selling lines. We are taking steps to address this by strengthening our merchandising capabilities. We managed stock very tightly, resulting in less stock going into our mid-season sale. We have had a good start to our new Spring/Summer launch, with our new ad campaign appealing to a broad customer base.
In Home we were pleased with the performance of our key home departments of kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms. Sales were almost entirely impacted by our decision to withdraw from technology.
M&S Direct delivered a strong performance with sales up 22.8%, ahead of the market. We launched a number of new initiatives aimed at improving our customers' shopping experience, including M&S Outlet on-line store which has been very popular with our customers.
Our strategic International markets in India, China and the Gulf continued to trade strongly and our newly opened flagship store in Paris performed ahead of expectations. However, International sales performance was impacted by continued macro-economic weakness in the Republic of Ireland and Greece, and the announced restructuring of our Central European business.
The pilot stores in the UK are performing well and customers have responded favourably to the improvements. Having thoroughly tested the new concepts, and by focusing on strong management of capital investment, we now plan to roll it out to the remainder of our estate, with no reduction in scope, for £100m less than the previous guidance of £600m. Our target completion date for the roll-out by mid 2013 remains unchanged.