Morrisons could be hit with another blow when new supermarket figures are published this week. The store could lose its place as the nation’s fifth-largest supermarket to Lidl.
It would come after the supermarket was previously pushed out of the top four, which also consists of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda, by Aldi. New figures will be released by industry research group Worldpanel tomorrow (Tuesday, August 19) and it is not looking good for Morrisons.
It comes after Morrisons cut over 3,600 jobs and shut 17 stores earlier this month. It reduced its workforce from 104,819 to 101,144 over the last financial year after a decline in revenue.
The chain also confirmed that it will close over 50 of its in-store cafes, as well as a number of Morrisons Daily convenience stores across the UK. The retailer is now set to return to profit for the first time since its 2021 private equity takeover, posting £2.1 billion pre-tax profit for the year ending October 27, 2024, compared to losses of £919 million the year before and £1.3 billion the year prior to that.
As reported by Retail Gazette, a large part of that profit, £2.6 billion, was generated from the sale of its petrol forecourts to Motor Fuel Group.
While the forecourt sale accounted for much of the profit rebound, Morrisons’ underlying performance also improved, with losses in continuing operations halving to £538 million from £1.09 billion.
The chain recorded a 3.9% rise in like-for-like sales and a 4.2% increase in total sales to £3.9 billion in the second quarter of its current financial year.
Morrisons’ boss, Rami Baitieh, said: “Against a challenging macro environment, with inflation driving subdued consumer sentiment, value remains at the forefront of customers’ minds. Throughout the first half, we’ve focused on price, promotions, and meaningful loyalty rewards to help our customers.”
Elsewhere, Aldi is also planning on making 350 job cuts to its head office. Sainsbury’s also announced 3,000 job losses and café closures, while Tesco made 400 redundancies to simplify operations.
