Tesco’s Christmas trading hit by bad weather

A BUSY day of reporting from retail sector leaders revealed supermarket giant, Tesco took a hit from the harsh weather over the Christmas and New Year trading period and Dixons Retail generated a 4% year-on-year sales fall in its core UK and Ireland division.

The bad weather in the run-up to Christmas resulted in Tesco’s Christmas sales growing by just 0.6%, on a year-on-year basis, in the UK (no individual breakdown of performance is available for the Irish market for the last month).

The company’s overall sales — in the six weeks to January 8 — grew by 7.6%, but this was mainly driven by its international divisions performing strongly. Non-UK business delivered more than half of Tesco’s group sales over the period in question.