Fears of a tough Christmas for UK retailers began to be realised today after Woolworths said sales had been "disappointing" over the festive period.
In the four weeks to Saturday, Woolies said like-for-like sales from its core estate of 806 shops had been flat against the previous year.
It said the lacklustre trading performance was most seen in the toys and entertainment sectors, with the latter suffering from a shortage of new electronic games hardware and weaker-than-expected demand for key DVD releases.
With sales in the main retail estate down 1.5% over the last 48 weeks, Woolworths said it now expected annual underlying profits to be similar to a year earlier.
Analysts had been looking for profits of around £78 million in the year to January 31, compared with £66.7 million previously.
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