Asda Boss: Economic Recovery Fragile
Britain’s economic recovery is fragile, with huge regional variations, the head of Asda has said after the company reported flat sales over the key Christmas quarter.
Andy Clarke, chief executive of the British arm of US retailer Wal-Mart Stores, said he did not expect the regional disparities to change dramatically in 2014.
“The economy is still fragile and so customers still feel very fragile,” he reported.
He said levels of disposable income were hugely dependent on which part of the country consumers lived in.
“If you live in London and the south east and you’ve got 10 per cent housing value growth then it feels very different than if you are in the northeast or Northern Ireland, where unemployment is still a big challenge,” he said, noting an unexpected rise in UK joblessness in data published this week.
Clarke was speaking just days after British finance minister George Osborne warned that Britain’s economic recovery was not secure.
Asda, battling with Sainsbury’s to be Britain’s No. 2 grocery chain, said sales at stores open over a year, excluding fuel and VAT sales tax, fell 0.1 percent year on year for the 13 weeks to January 3, its fiscal fourth quarter, although it kept its gross margin steady.
The sales performance represented a slowdown from like-for-like growth of 0.3 percent in the third quarter, further illustrating how tough Christmas was for Britain’s major grocers.
