Despite a cyberattack last month that cut food supplies, British retailer Marks & Spencer’s food business saw food sales rise 10.8% in the 12 weeks to May 17 compared with the same period last year, industry data released on Thursday showed.
Marks & Spencer’s share of the UK grocery market rose 20 basis points to 3.8% from a year earlier, researcher NielsenIQ said.
However, Marks & Spencer’s sales growth was indeed lower than the 14.7% NielsenIQ had previously reported.
As part of its response to the cyberattack, Marks & Spencer halted online clothing orders and shut down other systems. This not only affected food supplies, but also led to increased waste and logistics costs.
Marks & Spencer said last week that the attack would cost it about 300 million pounds ($404 million) in operating profit and that online service disruptions could last until July.
Much of NIQ’s data mirrors findings from a report published on Wednesday by rival research house Kantar, which showed strong sales growth at discounters Aldi and Lidl, market leader Tesco, second-placed Sainsbury’s and online supermarket Ocado.
However, M&S is not fully included in Kantar’s market share data set.
