LONDON (Reuters) -British retailer Marks & Spencer recorded a 6.7% year-on-year increase in food sales over the 12 weeks to August 9 as the impact of a cyberattack in April faded from the figures, industry data showed on Wednesday.
Researcher NielsenIQ said M&S’ grocery sales growth accelerated from 4.3% in last month’s report. Its market share held steady at 3.7%.
As part of its management of the cyberattack, M&S stopped taking online clothing orders and also took other systems offline. That reduced food availability and also resulted in higher waste and logistics costs.
In May, M&S said the attack would cost it about 300 million pounds ($405 million) in lost operating profit.
The group resumed taking online orders for clothing lines on June 10 after a 46-day suspension following the attack, and restarted click and collect services on August 11 after a near four-month hiatus.
Other data on the grocery sector released by NielsenIQ broadly echoed the findings of rival researcher Worldpanel’s report on Tuesday, with robust performances from online supermarket Ocado, discounter Lidl GB, industry leader Tesco and number two player Sainsbury’s.
M&S was not included in Worldpanel’s data set.
($1 = 0.7413 pounds)
(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Jan Harvey)
