Back-to-school bolsters George at Asda’s Q3 performance

For the third quarter ending 30 September 2024, supermarket giant Asda’s clothing range George delivered “strong performance”, with like-for-like sales increasing 4.9 percent.

The retailer credited the uptick to its back-to-school range, which it said generated around 180 million pounds in sales, marking its “best performance to date”.

The positivity extended into Asda’s online platform, where George sales rose a notable 7.7 percent during the quarter due to what the company said was “ease and convenience”.

Elsewhere, however, things were less optimistic for Asda. Total group revenues increased only 0.5 percent over the year to date, while Q3 revenues dropped 2.5 percent to 5.3 billion pounds.

In light of the sales slump, Asda said it has put a priority on improving availability and investing in value for customers, a mission that is currently being supported by an additional 30 million pound investment into store hours. This will be expanded by 13 million pounds for the busy ‘Golden Quarter’ period.

In a release, Lord Rose, Asda’s chairman, remained upbeat regarding what he said was the company’s “largest transformation in [its] history” over the last three years.

Rose continued: “We have laid solid foundations to drive long term growth, but the unprecedented scale of these changes has absorbed a huge amount of the leadership’s time with a temporary impact on Asda’s customer experience in stores.”