Asda reports sales decline for seventh consecutive quarter

Asda has reported a 5.7% fall in like-for-like sales for the first quarter of 2016.

These latest figures mark the seventh quarter in a row that the Leeds-headquartered supermarket chain has seen a drop in sales.

However, Asda’s performance in the first three months of the year is a slight improvement from the 5.8% fall in sales experienced in the final quarter of 2015, which is its worst sales drop on record.

Asda is currently in a price war with the other ‘big four’ UK supermarkets, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons’, whilst also battling the fast-growing discount food retailers Lidl and Aldi.

In an effort to win back customers, CEO Andy Clarke launched Project Renewal - a plan to make £500m worth of price cuts to try to reverse the decline in sales.

US retailing giant Walmart, which owns Asda, has come forward and admitted that cutting prices hasn’t stopped customers switching to rival supermarkets.

Brett Biggs, chief financial officer at Walmart, said: “The UK continues to struggle, due primarily to fierce competition.

“Improvements in price and product availability throughout the quarter were not enough to overcome traffic and food volume declines in our large format stores.”

In addition, Asda also seen a 5% drop in the number of shoppers visiting its stores, again confirming that Mr Clarke’s recovery plan isn’t working.