Morrisons today said its online grocery service had rung up sales worth around £200m in its first year. The supermarket said the service, which is underpinned by technology and fulfillment capacity from Ocado, now covered 50% of UK households. On its first anniversary the service delivered its millionth order.
But the impact of Morrisons’ move into online is not yet significant at the bottom line. Today the supermarket reported turnover of £16.8bn, 4.9% down in total terms on the same time last year. Underlying pre-tax, meanwhile, fell by 52% to £345m, and at the bottom line the company was in the red to the tune of a £792m loss, thanks to a £1.3bn writedown on the value of its property porfolio.
Chairman Andrew Higginson said the customers would be key to Morrisons’ success under the leadership of chief executive David Potts, set to join the business next week.
“We will focus on building trading momentum and being more like the Morrisons our customers expect. We will invest more into the proposition and put customers at the heart of everything we do. We will listen and respond to our customers, and work hard every day to improve the shopping trip.
“Success measures will be simple – more customers buying more from us. More customers means more volume growth which, ultimately, will lead to better like-for-like, profitability and shareholder returns.”
