Yahoo Finance Asda's new boss encouraged as it stems sales decline
Asda said it was seeing early signs of a turnaround under its new boss as it credited a shake-up over the last year for helping to stem falling sales.
Britain's third biggest supermarket, owned by US retail giant Walmart, reported a 2.9% fall in comparable sales for the three months to the end of December.
It was the tenth straight quarter of decline and compares unfavourably with the performance of major rivals over the key Christmas period.
But it represents an improvement on the drop of 5.8% in the previous period and a record drop of 7.5% before that.
Asda replaced boss Andy Clarke with long-serving Walmart executive Sean Clarke last summer.
He said the Leeds-based company was "encouraged by the early signs of our customers responding positively to the hard work that's been happening in our stores throughout 2016".
The chief executive said it had welcomed more than 140,000 customers back to Asda in the quarter.
"We are putting customers first and have sharpened our prices, improved our ranges and availability, all with friendly service," Mr Clarke said.
Walmart boss Doug McMillon said: "In the UK, we faced some challenges this past year and we're addressing this with urgency.
"I'm glad comp store sales improved during the fourth quarter, but we have a lot of work to do."
Asda said in September that it was lowering thousands of prices on everyday favourites by an average of 15% as well as improving the quality of own-brand ranges.
It has been feeling the brunt of the ferocious price war engulfing the supermarket sector as it vies with 'big four' rivals Tesco (Frankfurt: 852647 - news) , Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's and Morrisons for a share of the market being gnawed away by discounters Aldi and Lidl.
Earlier this month, Walmart said it was throwing more of its global buying power behind Asda to help it beat rivals on price.
Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, said: "It is evident that Walmart must get a firmer grip on this part of the business."
