Marks & Spencer has delivered impressive half-year results, with profit before tax and adjusting items up 17.2% to £407.8m.
The retail giant saw significant growth across its Food and Clothing & Home divisions, with Food sales increasing by 8.1% and Clothing & Home sales rising by 4.7%.
Both sectors have now achieved market share growth for four consecutive years, solidifying M&S’s position as a trusted retailer.
Chief Executive Stuart Machin attributed the success to the company’s strategy of ‘Reshaping M&S for Growth’, which has resulted in an increase in customers, sales value and volume, market share, profit, and returns.
The Food division has focused on trusted value and quality upgrades, whilst Clothing & Home has improved style perception and attracted new customers through on-trend collaborations.
Despite the strong performance, Machin emphasised that there is still much to do, particularly in accelerating the transformation of the online proposition and resetting priorities in the International division.
The company is also ramping up its store rotation plan, having acquired ten major new sites in high-quality, high-growth locations.
Looking ahead, M&S remains confident in its ability to deliver value for shareholders, with a robust financial position and an improved return on capital employed of 15%.
The company has declared an interim dividend of 1p per share and is preparing for what Machin describes as “the best Christmas food range I’ve seen in my time at M&S and the most stylish seasonal clothing offer yet”
Stuart Machin, Chief Executive said: “Executing our strategy to ‘Reshape M&S for Growth’ has again delivered an increase in customers, sales value and volume, market share, profit and returns. Both Food and Clothing have now delivered market share growth for four consecutive years.
“Central to our strategy is our vision to be the most trusted retailer, with quality products at the heart of everything we do.
“This is not something we take lightly, and our relentlessness in delivering customers the best quality, innovation, service and value only available at M&S underpins our trading momentum.
“In Food, we have been resolute in our commitment to trusted value. Over 1,000 products are being upgraded and 1,400 new lines are being launched across the year, putting us even further ahead of the pack on quality credentials, and value perception is the highest it’s been in a decade.
“Progress on being a ‘shopping list retailer’ has driven growth in larger baskets.
“In Clothing, deeper buying into campaign lines and on-trend collaborations have driven yet another move on in style perception, with Womenswear and Menswear attracting new customers.
“The easy thing to do today would simply be to say that these are good results, but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
“Despite our strong trading momentum, there is much more opportunity for future growth and that energises us.
“With Clothing in growth and strong online performance, we are clear that now is the time to seize the opportunity in other categories including Home and Beauty.
“Under new leadership, we’ve now got a grip on our digital and technology infrastructure, as progress to date has been slower than we would have liked, so we must accelerate delivery.
“We are resetting priorities in International to drive future growth, as well as acting now to improve short-term performance.
“We have fresh impetus in our store rotation plan with the acquisition of ten major new sites in high quality, high growth locations, but we want to go faster so every store is a store we’re proud of.”
