LONDON (Reuters) -Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, kept its full-year profit guidance after it joined rivals in reporting stronger than expected Christmas sales despite an escalating cost-of-living crisis.
The supermarket group, which has a 27.5% share of Britain’s grocery market, said on Thursday UK like-for-like sales rose 4.3% in its third quarter to Nov. 26 and were up 7.2% in the six weeks to Jan. 7.
Tesco maintained its forecast for 2022-23 retail adjusted operating profit of between 2.4 billion pounds and 2.5 billion pounds ($2.9-$3.0 billion), down from the 2.65 billion pounds made in 2021-22.
It expects retail free cash flow of at least 1.8 billion pounds and profit from Tesco Bank of 120-160 million pounds.
“We go into the new calendar year with good momentum and I am confident we can continue to maintain our competitiveness and deliver a strong performance relative to the market despite the challenging conditions ahead,” said Chief Executive Ken Murphy.
(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Kate Holton)
