Morrisons’ Q2 results covering the 13 weeks ended 26th April reported a total sales increase of 1.7% to reach £4 billion. Underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for H1 were up 5.7% to £323 million.

Key seasonal events such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter reportedly drove “strong performances”, while Morrisons also highlighted that it had achieved “good further progress” in its online category.

The retailer said that 30 Morrisons Daily franchise stores opened in Q2, making a total of 52 for the first half, with the supermarket planning “hundreds more” in the years ahead.

A further £48 million of savings were delivered in the quarter, taking the total to £942 million since the start of Morrisons’ cost-saving programme, now nearing the supermarket’s £1 billion target.

“Trading conditions remain highly competitive… we have made an encouraging start to the third quarter.”

Rami Baitiéh, chief executive of Morrisons, said: “We continued to make good progress against our priorities in Q2. In a highly competitive market, we’re focusing hard on delivering the best value for customers to give them more reasons to shop at Morrisons.

“Against the challenging backdrop, I’m pleased with the performance we have delivered in Q2; a 14th consecutive quarter of like-for-like sales growth; underlying EBITDA up, strong improvements in customer experience in our Supermarkets, Cafes and Online with significant increases in net promoter score; good further progress with our cost saving programme and market share on an improving trend.

“Trading conditions remain highly competitive. We have made an encouraging start to the third quarter and have strong plans in place to make the most of the World Cup and Father’s Day.

“While more recent international news creates some grounds for optimism, we continue to monitor the impact of input inflation very closely and we remain committed to doing whatever we can to help keep prices down for customers.”