Morrisons extends Amazon partnership following steady H1 results

Supermarket chain Morrisons has announced an extension of its partnership with online retailer Amazon after ‘maintaining momentum’ with its half-year performance.

In a statement this morning, the Bradford-based group announced that it had agreed a multi-year partnership with the retail platform instead of a rolling arrangement.

The renewed partnership will also see both firms exploring new ways of expanding their joint proposition to customers.

In addition to the news, Morrisons reported a pre-tax profit of £198m in the first half of FY 2019-2020, up 5.3 per cent on the same period of the previous year.

Group like-for-like sales for the first half of the year saw a slight increase of 0.9 per cent, slightly offset by the second quarter’s performance which saw a drop of 1.9 per cent.

Andrew Higginson, Morrisons’ chairman, commented: “I’m confident that Morrisons is on the right path for continued and sustainable growth. The team are listening and responding to customers, and making the right choices to benefit all stakeholders, including strong dividends for shareholders.”

Morrisons’ chief executive David Potts, added: “We stayed focussed on our Fix, Rebuild and Grow strategy, and were pleased to maintain the momentum of the turnaround against strong comparatives last year.

“Sales and profit progress was robust, and we again invested in improving our competitiveness for customers.

“News today of new wholesale initiatives, including a further extension of our partnership with Amazon, and of another special dividend, again show how new Morrisons continues to become broader and stronger for all stakeholders, and how progress can be meaningful and sustainable even in more testing trading conditions.”