James Davey

LONDON (Reuters) – Marks & Spencer (OTC:) was Britain’s fastest growing food retailer in the key Christmas quarter, market researcher NielsenIQ said on Tuesday, providing further evidence that the company’s latest turnaround programme is gaining traction.

NielsenIQ said M&S’s grocery sales soared 9.4% in the 12 weeks to Jan. 1 from the same period a year earlier, with growth accelerating from its November report.

In November, M&S said it had beaten forecasts for first-half profit and upgraded its earnings outlook for the second time in three months, sending its stock soaring on bets that one of Britain’s most elusive turnarounds could finally materialise.

The shares of the company have risen 84% in the past year.

Some analysts believe M&S, which also sells clothing and homeware, could upgrade its 2021-22 profit outlook again on Thursday when it publishes its own third-quarter trading update.

NielsenIQ’s data indicated that Tesco (OTC-:), the British market leader, was one of Britain’s “Big Four” grocers.

Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s saw their sales fall by 0.1%. These fell 4.2%, 3.1%, 5.6% and 5.6%, respectively.

The data was consistent with data released last week by Kantar Market Research, which is a competitor market researcher. However, Kantar does not include M&S in its monthly reports.

NielsenIQ noted, however, that M&S had weaker comparative sales numbers than the Big Four in 2020.

According to the researcher, UK consumers spent an average of 7.1 Billion Pounds ($9.6 Billillion) in supermarkets between Dec. 25 and December 25, compared with 6.7 Billion in 2020.

Sainsbury’s and Tesco will update their Christmas trading Wednesday.

Aldi, the British subsidiary of German discount grocery chain Aldi, announced Monday that December sales rose by 0.4% over last year.

($1 = 0.7374 pounds)