Tesco rings up £1.9bn profit

Tesco reported worsening sales declines today as electronics and entertainment products were hit hard amid the most challenging conditions for a generation.

The supermarket giant, which last week launched its £500m Big Price Drop campaign, said like-for-like sales excluding VAT and petrol fell 0.9% in the three months to August 27, a deterioration on the 0.1% decline in the previous quarter.

Despite the worsening situation in the UK, the group recorded a 6.2% rise in underlying profits to £1.9bn in the half-year, boosted by a strong performance in Asia. Sales rose 8.8% to £35.5bn.

Sainsbury’s, which also updated on trading today, revealed that like-for-like sales increased by 1.9% in the 16 weeks to October 1 – the same rate as in the previous quarter. Unlike Tesco, its figures include VAT.