Asia momentum lifts Tesco

7th Dec 2010 07:10

Good momentum across all of its areas of operation helped supermarket giant Tesco lift sales by 8.8% in the past three months, though its international businesses again led the way.Tesco has been spelling out its expansion plans in Asia in the past month and sales there were key to the 15.7% improvement from the internatonal operations in the latest period to end November.Sales in Asia rose by 23.4% at actual exchange rates, though like-for-like sales dipped a little to 4.3% from 5.0% in the second quarter.UK sales rose by 5.0% (including VAT and excluding petrol) with like-for-like sales up by 1.5%. The performance strengthened towards the end of the quarter, Tesco added.European sales rose by 7.6%. Like-for-like sales growth of 3.6% was boosted by Hungary and Turkey in particular. In the US, sales were up 38.5% with a 'particularly successful' Thanksgiving holiday period. Like-for-like sales growth came in at 9.8%."We've made good progress in the third quarter with growth from across the Group. Our continued investment in the shopping trip and our new space opening programme across our markets are giving us good sales momentum and market share gains," chief executive Terry Leahy added.