Revenue for the period reached £15.3bn, up from £14.7bn a year earlier, while Q4 of 2023/24 represented the best quarter of sales since the beginning of 2021.
This resulted in a 11.2% increase in underlying EBITDA, which was £835m for the full-year.
The news follows the announcement that Morrisons is planning to lay off more than 200 members of staff from across its employee engagement, recruitment and payroll teams.
‘Year of urgent reinvigoration’
Morrisons chief executive Rami Baitiéh praised his colleague for the improvements made to the retailer’s operations as it looked to get back on track after a difficult 2022/23 which saw it suffer a £1.1bn pre-tax loss.
Over the past year, fresh availability improved by 4% across all stores and sales linked to the Morrisons More Card grew to 68%.
Furthermore, Morrisons extended its price match scheme so that it now covers more than 500 products and debt has reduced by 40% from its peak.
On the acquisitions and divestments front, Morrisons announced the purchase of 36 convenience stores in the Channel Islands during the 2023/24 fiscal year – although that transaction closed in November 2024 – with its estate of smaller format stores now topping 1,600. It also closed the sale of its petrol forecourts to MFG for £2.5bn in April of last year.
“This has been a year of urgent reinvigoration and positive progress for Morrisons,” Baitiéh commented.
“Customer transactions increased, market share grew from Q2 and we saw positive switching from our competitors. The improvements across the business have resulted in better availability in our stores, sharper prices, more effective promotions and a strong and growing loyalty scheme.”
Baitiéh also described the More Card as now firmly established among customers after a “stunning year”.
“Linked sales [grew] from 47% just 18 months ago to 76% today,” he continued.
“We have introduced a rolling programme of around 2,500 deeply discounted More Card prices and points are now awarded on every product. In the two-week Christmas period around 3.5m Morrisons Fivers were redeemed by customers.”
Jo Goff, chief financial officer at Morrisons, added: “A year of broad based operational progress has helped to deliver a significantly strengthened Morrisons. We delivered a further £150m of progress on our working capital programme in the year, taking the total since the start of the programme to £450m, and have achieved £312m in our cost saving programme in the year.
“Our capital allocation framework remains to firstly invest in our estate and proposition, second to reduce debt and leverage and third to invest prudently in growth. We have a good track record in each of these, and debt is now down 40% from its peak.”
