John Lewis Partnership improves profit by £120m YoY

The John Lewis Partnership has released unaudited full year results for the year to 27th January:

• Profit before tax and exceptional items of £42m, an improvement of £120m compared to a £78m loss in 2022/23
• Profit before tax of £56m, a £290m improvement year-on-year
• Operating profit margins increased 1.2 percentage points in the year
• Partnership sales were £12.4bn, up 1% on last year
• One million more customers shopped with JLP in the year taking the total to 22.6 million
• Net cash generated from operating activities increased by £201m to £433m and total liquidity increased to £1.7bn
• Improved Debt ratio from 4.4x to 3.4x
• Improved performance will allow accelerated investment (£542m planned this year, up from £312m in 2023/24) and highest ever pay investment for partners amounting to £116m. There will be no Partnership Bonus paid this year

John Lewis (department store business)

• John Lewis sales were £4.8bn, down 4% YoY.
• Sales in Fashion, including Beauty, were up on the year while sales were weaker in Home and Technology.
• John Lewis attracted a record 13.4 million customers.
• Trading Operating Profit of £689m was £13m better year-on-year
• Gross margin improvement of 1.0 percentage point and efficiency savings across supply chain and stores underpinned this improvement.
• Introduced over 170 new brands.
• Customers continued to turn to John Lewis for independent, unbiased advice; over 200 Partners are now  dedicated to fashion personal styling (appointments up 27%), nursery (appointments up 25%) and home (appointments up 5%).
• Enhanced the customer experience across the John Lewis app and website, making it quicker and easier to shop online for delivery or collection at over 13,000 locations.
• 53% of customers use digital channels for their shopping.

Waitrose

• Sales were up 5% to £7.7bn and a record number of customers chose to shop with Waitrose.
• Trading Operating Profit of £1,064m improved by £170m. Sales growth, combined with strong delivery of productivity programmes across stores, cost of goods and supply chain underpinned this improvement.
• For the full year, volume was down 1.5% and average item price up by 6.6%.
• Market dynamics of inflation and low consumer confidence, especially in the first half of the year, shaped the pattern of trade. Slower volumes in the first half and only passing on half of the market rate of inflation to customers meant market share (Kantar) declined.
• Customer and trade dynamics recovered strongly through the second half as customers responded to the “New Lower Prices” campaign.
• Volume growth returned in four months of the second half when volume market share grew.
• Over the full year store transactions grew 6.8%.
• Waitrose has delivered eight consecutive quarters of growth in customer numbers which were up 8.1% to 15.0m.
• Invested £100m in lower prices and launched innovative products like the Japan Menyū range.
• Major replatforming of supply systems is substantially complete and product availability is at record levels.
• Nearly 2.5 million customers shopped at our fresh food counters, up 4%. Personal service from Partners, embodied in our counter offer, ‘remains a core differentiator’.
• Service credentials were recognised through a record 21 The Grocer 33 awards.
• Waitrose won The Grocer Gold customer service award for the third year running.

READ THE FULL RESULTS