Marks & Spencer clothing sales fall for 9th straight quarter

LONDON, Nov 5 (Reuters) - British retailer Marks & Spencer (Other OTC: MAKSY - news) reported a ninth consecutive quarterly fall in underlying sales of general merchandise, with its much vaunted new season clothing ranges only managing to slightly slow the rate of decline.

The 129-year-old group, which serves 21 million customers a week from nearly 770 British stores, also posted on Tuesday a fall in first-half profit - down for the third year running.

Britain's biggest clothing retailer, which also sells homewares and food, said sales of non-food products, spanning clothing, footwear and homewares, at stores open over a year fell 1.3 percent in the 13 weeks to Sept. 28, its fiscal second quarter.

That compared with analyst forecasts of down 0.4-2.5 percent and a first quarter decline of 1.6 percent.

M&S's food business, which contributes over half of group sales, is performing much better. Its sales on the same basis rose 3.2 percent versus analyst forecasts of a rise of 3.0-3.2 percent.

First (Other OTC: FSTC - news) -half profit before tax and one off items was 261.6 million pounds.

That was in line with analysts' average forecast of 262 million pounds, down from 287.3 million pounds last year.

M&S said its expectations for the full-year were unchanged.