8 January 2026
If you are covering Marks and Spencer’s Christmas trading update, please see the following comment from Lucy Rumbold, equity research analyst at Quilter Cheviot:
“In its Christmas trading statement this morning, M&S has proven it continues to outperform the market. The retailer achieved UK volume growth of 2.3% and reached a market share high of 4%. Like-for-like food sales remained robust at 5.6% which have outpaced inflation and other retailers but are slightly moderated compared to last year. Management also saw strength in core grocery which reflects the broader trend of consumers increasingly cooking at home - a pattern also observed by Tesco.
“Fashion and beauty sales remain subdued, largely due to lingering effects from the recent cyber incident. The trend of weaker in-store retail is also having an impact, but this was well anticipated and has been observed across the sector, as opposed to being a company-specific issue. Elsewhere, M&S’s international performance was positive with 1% growth, and Ocado retail continues to expand rapidly, with sales up 13.7%. This contributed to a 16% increase in M&S food sales and was 30% of Ocado’s total sales.
“Despite a slightly soft Christmas update, management has reiterated guidance, which was a key focus of investors as we expect this to be taken positively by the market. Some weakness had been expected this year as the company continues to address the aftermath of its cyber incident.
“Looking ahead, confidence remains in M&S’s long term prospects. The retailer is particularly well positioned in food, benefitting from the trend of consumers trading down from dining out to eating in - a shift unlikely to reverse soon given rising restaurant costs and heightened consumer caution. Meanwhile, in clothing, the business is steadily closing the performance gap and is on track to return to its pre-cyber incident levels by the full-year results in May, so we can expect it to pick back up where it left off in 2027.”
