British supermarket giant Tesco has delivered a 12.5 per cent rise in half-year profits, beating market expectations.
Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket chain, reported underlying profit of £1.15bn in the six months to August 26. Analysts had expected underlying profit to reach nearer £1.12bn.
The company saw its overall sales jump 12.7 per cent to £22.7bn.
International sales increased by 21.3 per cent to £5.3bn, while core UK sales rose 10.2 per cent to £17.4bn.
Excluding petrol, first half like-for-like UK sales - which exclude new store openings - grew by 5.5 per cent.
There was also healthy growth in non-food UK sales, which rose 12.6 per cent to £3.5bn.
Clothing sales climbed 19 per cent and electronics sales surged 36 per cent.
There was also encouraging news for the firm's online business. Tesco.com saw sales grow by 28.7 per cent to £554m, with profits up 43.1 per cent to £33.8m.
Terry Leahy, Tesco: "Tesco is continuing to deliver strong progress across the Group - with all four parts of our strategy contributing - as more customers vote with their feet and shop with us."
Tesco Telecom became the second largest British retailer of pay-as-you-go mobile phones during the first half of the financial year, according to the group.
Terry Leahy, Tesco chief executive, said: "Tesco is continuing to deliver strong progress across the Group - with all four parts of our strategy contributing - as more customers vote with their feet and shop with us.
"At the same time, with the recent launch of Tesco Direct and the preparations for our entry into the United States in 2007, we are investing into new markets to drive the long term growth of the business, as well as making a good start on our new Community Plan."
Mr Leahy also said the company was on track to create over 20,000 new jobs worldwide by the end of the year.
Tesco, which operates more than 2,300 stores in 13 countries, saw its shares jump 4p to 369.5p in early morning trade.
comments
Tesco is an efficient company, serving its customers pretty well and making profits in many countries around the world, not just the UK. They have nothing on Walmart though.
17th October 2006 at 8:24am
A well-run company and successful business should be welcomed in this country. They are a British success story. But of course us British can't accept someone or something being successful. It's just not in our nature.
17th October 2006 at 8:24am
I think that it is really bad that a company has got so big and powerful. They are destroying the small retailers and that can't be a good thing. Something needs to be done to prevent them growing any bigger.
17th October 2006 at 8:24am
Tesco is too big and powerful. But the general public are greedy and stupid and don't care about Tesco's bullying of suppliers and farmers. We, as consumers, are at fault. We need to change our shopping habits.
17th October 2006 at 8:23am
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