Sainsbury's first-half profit down for third straight year

LONDON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - British supermarket Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's on Wednesday reported a third straight decline in first half profit, hurt by a fall in sales that partly reflected its own price cuts.

The UK's second biggest supermarket, which in September completed a 1.4 billion pound ($1.75 billion) takeover of Argos owner Home Retail (Other OTC: HMRLF - news) , made an underlying pretax profit of 277 million pounds for the 28 weeks to Sept. 24, down 10.1 percent from the 308 million pounds made in the same period last year.

First (Other OTC: FSTC - news) half underlying sales fell 1.0 percent, with the second-quarter outcome, reported in September, down 1.1 percent.

Sainsbury's said the market remained competitive, with pricing pressure continuing to squeeze margins.

"The full impact of the devaluation of sterling on retail prices is as yet uncertain. However, we are well placed to navigate the external environment and remain focused on delivering our strategy," it said. ($1 = 0.8022 pounds) (Reporting by James Davey, editing by Louise Heavens)