Profits at supermarket operator Asda, which is owned Wal-Mart, have surpassed £1 billion for the first time despite a decline in sales and slight loss of market share.
According to recently filed annual accounts, Asda's operating profit rose 1.9 per cent to £1.01bn in 2014, helped by its drive to reduce costs.
That compares with major profit falls last year at all three of Asda's "big four" rivals in Britain, market leader Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.
They have all been hurt by a price war, as they attempt to stem the loss of shoppers to discounters Aldi and Lidl, and by commodity-led deflation.
Asda said 2014 revenue fell 0.4 per cent to £23.2bn, sales at stores open over a year decreased one per cent and UK market share dipped 0.1 percentage point to 17.1 per cent.
Asda chief executive Andy Clarke launched a five-year strategy in 2013 focused on lower prices but eschewing the money-off vouchers touted by its rivals.
The firm invested £300 million in lowering prices during 2014.
However, Asda's sales performance has deteriorated in 2015, with the firm posting like-for-like sales declines of 3.9 per cent in its first quarter and 4.7 per cent in its second quarter.
The second quarter outcome, Asda's worst performance in the 16 years it's been owned by Wal-Mart, was described by Mr Clarke as the firm's "nadir".
The most recently published industry data put Asda's UK market share at 16.7 per cent, down 0.6 percentage points year-on-year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here