Sunshine and football did the heavy lifting. Morrisons said customer demand picked up with the hot summer and the World Cup, helping like-for-like sales climb 3.2% in the 13 weeks ending July 26. That marks the supermarket's best quarterly lift in more than a year and keeps its run of quarterly growth alive at 15 in a row.
The company said net borrowings are now close to 50% lower than where they stood in 2022. It also said it is well on the way to achieving cumulative savings of £1 billion ($1.3 billion). Morrisons was taken private in 2021 by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice in a heavily debt-financed buyout, a backdrop that makes deleveraging and efficiency gains especially important.
The latest update adds to signs that Morrisons is holding up better than Asda, the other UK grocer backed by private equity that it is often measured against. Asda was bought five years ago by the Issa brothers and TDR Capital, and last month it recorded a ninth consecutive quarterly drop in sales. Even so, fresh figures from researcher Worldpanel by Numerator showed Asda's sales edged up 0.1% in the 12 weeks to Sept. 6, its first positive print since March 2024.
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Competition in UK grocery remains fierce, and higher interest costs have made it tougher for both Morrisons and Asda to counter rivals' moves. Worldpanel data show Aldi is narrowing the gap with Asda for the number three spot, while Lidl recently pushed Morrisons down to sixth place. For shoppers and investors alike, that mix of cost cutting, debt reduction and hard-charging discounters is the real story to watch on prices, market share and how far your weekly shop goes.
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