In Sainsbury’s (SBRY) last set of results for the 52 weeks ending 1 March, the company impressed investors with double-digit growth and an underlying operating profit topping £1 billion.

The company also said it had completed a £200 million share buyback and increased its full-year dividend by 4% to 13.6p.

However, Sainsbury’s can’t ignore the ‘elephant in the room’ which is the supermarket price war apparently ignited by Asda earlier in the year.

CEO Simon Roberts acknowledged the supermarket’s urgent need to gain market share by announcing that it would invest £1 billion in lowering prices.

But will Roberts’ move be enough when the company reports its first-quarter trading update on 1 July?

According to the latest data from analysts at Kantar, Sainsburys was one of the standout performers over the 12 weeks to 15 June with year-on-year sales gains of 5.7%.

Shore Capital retail guru Clive Black says: ‘Sainsbury has been consistently gaining market share in recent years in the British grocery scene, and we see [loyalty card] Nectar, now in its third year of operation, as an important component of that achievement.

‘Whilst Sainsbury must keep its loyalty mechanism alive and interesting to customers, noting very high penetration, it is encouraging to see the engine behind it also potentially maintaining and building the high margin media income channel too. Now for the execution stage.’

Other issues the supermarket can’t ignore include escalating costs – linked to national living wage and national insurance increases brought in by the UK government in April – and pressure on profit at Argos.

UK UPDATES OVER THE NEXT 7 DAYS

FULL-YEAR RESULTS

1 July: Supreme

2 July: Renold

3 July: Currys

FIRST-HALF RESULTS

30 June: Kitwave

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

1 July: Sainsbury’s

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