Bradford-based supermarket giant Morrisons said sales excluding fuel rose in the latest quarter and EBITDA for the first half of the financial year jumped 16%.

The company said total sales, not including fuel, rose 3.7% in the quarter to £3.8 billion, while underlying EBITDA for the first half of the financial year, also excluding fuel, rose 16% to £321 million.

It said it also acquired 38 convenience stores in the Channel Islands from SandpiperCI in the quarter, and set a target of 2,000 Morrisons Daily convenience stores across the UK in 2025, up from 1,600 currently.

Rami Baitiéh, Chief Executive Officer, said: “I am pleased with the overall performance of the business in the second quarter with supermarkets, convenience, wholesale and online all delivering growth and contributing to a 4.1% increase in like-for-like sales.”

“Our Aldi and Lidl Price Match, introduced in February, has had a great start and is giving customers increasing confidence in the competitiveness of our prices across the shop.” 

Jo Goff, Chief Financial Officer, said: “This has been another solid quarter of progress with sales and volume improvements right across the business. Our debt has now reduced by over a third and we made further progress on our cost savings programme with £78m delivered in the quarter, taking the total since the start of this year to just over £450m, in line with our £700 million three year target.”