LONDON (Reuters) -British retailer Marks & Spencer’s food business kept up its strong sales momentum in the early weeks of the new year, with industry data showing it to be the country’s fastest growing bricks and mortar grocery retailer.
Market researcher NIQ said M&S’s grocery sales rose 9.7% over the 12 weeks to Jan. 25, giving it a market share of 4.2%, up 20 basis points on the year.
Online supermarket Ocado remained the fastest growing of all grocers with sales up 15.6% over the period.
Most of NIQ’s data broadly echoed the findings of rival researcher Kantar’s report on Tuesday.
However, M&S, which also sells clothing and homewares, is not included in Kantar’s market share data set.
Shares in M&S, which last month reported robust Christmas trading, are up 43% year-on-year, but down 8% so far in 2025.
(Reporting by James Davey, Editing by Louise Heavens)
