Wal-Mart pleased with Asda figures

Bosses of American supermarket chain Wal-Mart praised the performance of Asda today after the UK supermarket chain exceeded sales and profit targets for the 2007 financial year.

Like-for-like sales excluding fuel increased by “mid-single digits”, while total sales growth was in the high single digits.

Asda did not provide exact sales and profit figures as part of an update accompanying figures from Wal-Mart today.

Annual sales at Wal-Mart jumped 8.6% to $374bn (€253bn) as profits rose 5.8% to 12.88bn (€8.73bn) in the year to the end of January.

Mike Duke, Wal-Mart vice-chairman, said: “During the year, Asda was a winner in the UK, being the fastest growing of the big four retailers. In fact, Asda achieved above-market average growth every single month this year.”

He said Asda added almost two million customers and 50 basis points of market share since the start of 2006.