First-half profits and sales at Tesco surpassed the market's high expectations and the company said today it would continue to deliver strong results in the second half of the year.
Underlying pre tax profit for the first six months of the year came in at £822 million sterling, up 24.4 per cent from a year earlier, and above analysts' forecast range of £761 million to £799 million.
Group sales rose 12.2 per cent to £16.5 billion, against a forecast range of £14.9 to £15.502 billion.
Tesco Ireland reported strong trading in its new "Express" stores and petrol stations. Tesco claims to have reduced prices by € 30 million it its Irish stores so far this year.
Tesco's shares, which have outperformed the FTSE-100 benchmark index by 4 per cent this year, closed at 275-1/4 pence yesterday.
In Britain, where Tesco makes almost four-fifths of its group turnover, like-for-like sales rose 8.3 per cent, with total sales including new space rising 11.5 per cent to £13.1 billion.
The company proposed an interim dividend of 2.29 pence per share, up 10.6 per cent from the 2.07 pence it paid for the same period last year.