Britain's No. 4 grocer, Wm Morrison Supermarkets, said quarterly underlying sales fell again, as its limited exposure to convenience stores and lack of an online food offer continued to hurt.
Morrisons, which trails market leader Tesco, Wal-Mart's Asda and J Sainsbury in UK market share, said on Thursday sales at stores open over a year fell 1.8 percent, excluding fuel, in the 13 weeks to May 5.
That compared with analysts' average forecast of down 2 percent, according to a Morrisons poll, but was an improvement on a fourth quarter decline of 4.1 percent.
"This performance reflects a steady improvement from the previous quarter and is in line with our expectations," the firm said.
Morrisons said plans to launch an online food operation by January 2014 were progressing, adding that talks with online grocer Ocado on a possible tie-up were continuing.
