Sainsbury's suffered sliding sales over Christmas - its first fall over the festive period for at least a decade. The supermarket said today like-for-like sales fell 1.7% in the 14 weeks to January 3 - a fourth consecutive quarterly fall - and boss Mike Coupe said the outlook remained 'challenging'. It is the first time in at least ten years that the retailer has suffered a fall over Christmas even though it said it enjoyed a record-breaking week before December 25 with 29.5 million customer transactions. Sainsbury's is the first of the Big Four to announce its results for the Christmas period, but while sales were down they were better than expected. Mr Coupe, who replaced Justin King as CEO in July, said Sainsbury's sold 'the same amount of stuff we sold last year at Christmas, but the prices were lower'. Results: Sainsburt's has said like-for-like sales fell 1.7% in the 14 weeks to January 3 and boss Mike Coupe said the outlook remained 'challenging' Analysts had forecasted sales would be down between 2.5 and 4.4 percent and represents an improvement from a second quarter decline of 2.8 percent. As a result shares opened up 6p at 241p this morning. The decline means there is huge pressure on its new chief executive, Mike Coupe, to come up with a big idea to halt the slide in sales, which he believes will continue to drop. He said: 'Sainsbury's has provided a great Christmas for our customers. Food price deflation and falling fuel prices have enabled our customers to treat themselves over the festive period. 'The outlook for the remainder of the financial year is set to remain challenging, with food price deflation likely to continue. We currently expect our fourth quarter like-for-like to be similar to that of our first half. To date, the supermarket giant has largely remained aloof from the price battle triggered by the rise of chains like Aldi, Lidl and Netto, believing its quality would retain the loyalty of shoppers. It came as experts predicted a 'discount revolution' where one in four shoppers will switch to a budget supermarket to save money in 2015. To fight the trend of falling sales across the big four Asda was the first to announce price cuts this morning, and was swiftly followed by Sainsbury's. Tesco and Morrisons are likely to follow. Asda has promised to spend £300million slashing the cost of 'essentials', including fruit and vegetables, cereal, milk, meat, eggs, fish, nappies and toilet rolls. Price comparison: With price drops across Asda, Aldi, Lidl and Sainsbury's, we've compared some of the essentials (source: moneysupermarket.com) Cutting prices: Asda said today it is ploughing £300million into price cuts in the first three months of this year . Today Sainsbury's will  announce more than 700 permanent price cuts tomorrow, which are added to reductions on more than 200 introduced in the run-up to Christmas. While the likes of Tesco, Asda and Morrisons battle to keep up with discounting rivals Aldi and Lidl, high-end supermarkets remain popular with consumers. Upmarket Waitrose, which is owned by the John Lewis Partnership, today reported a 2.8 per cent increase in store sales over the Christmas period, results which are predicted to outperform all of the firm's major rivals. The employee-owned company said total sales in the five weeks to 3 January, excluding fuel, were £728million, up 7 per cent year-on-year. The upmarket grocery chain's online sales also fared well, increasing by 26.3 per cent. Waitrose's managing director Mark Price said: 'As a business owned by the people who work here, we can take the long-term view and our Christmas results show the effectiveness of our strategy of investing in good value, in making our shops attractive destinations and in building our online business'. Although Waitrose has won sales from rivals it has not been immune to the ongoing industry price war. In September it posted a 9.4 per cent fall in first-half operating profit, partly because it had to cut prices and step up promotions to remain competitive. Mr Coupe has pledged a £150million investment per year for the next three years, which would translate into cuts to regular prices on more than 1,000 of the most popular items in customers' baskets and followed 200 lower prices put in place in November. Many products have been reduced by £1, such as a whole roasting chicken, a pack of ten Taste the Difference Ultimate Sausages, 460g packs of chicken breast fillets and 240g packs of salmon fillets. Sainsbury’s is promoting the fact that it is delivering big reductions on the cost of a full English breakfast fry up. It has cut the price of a large white sandwich loaf by 30p to £1, while a pack of eight pork sausages is down by the same amount to £1.10. Butter is down by 15p to 95p, a litre of UHT milk by 20p to 70p and a litre of orange juice down by 10p to £1. The price of a pack of large Happy Eggs Large free range eggs came down from £2.15 to £1.90 in the autumn. The update comes during a key week for the retailers announcing Christmas trading figures, with Tesco and Marks & Spencer due to disclose sales numbers tomorrow. Supermarkets are engaged in a fierce price war amid a squeeze on their market share by discounters Aldi and Lidl while upmarket food offerings from Waitrose and M&S are also doing well - with Waitrose yesterday reporting a 2.8% Christmas sales rise. Sainsbury's own high-end range, Taste the Difference, did well over the third quarter with growth of five per cent, including prosecco sales up 30 per cent. It also sold more than 57 million mince pies and more than 550,000 turkeys, up eight per cent year-on-year. Experts have said that although discount shoppers are happy with the prices, they found customers are getting increasingly upset about the shopping experience. Long queues, foreign workers and lack of choice are among the top moans of those more used to the comparative luxury of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's or Morrisons. Two studies revealed the growth of the called 'Lidl Class', shoppers who now do either a weekly or simple top up shop at the discount chains. According to comparison site GoCompare, 26 per cent of Brits will, this year, do more of their shopping at one of these chains as part of their moneysaving strategy. Other plans to rein in spending include giving up coffee shop treats and takeaways as their poll of 2,000 adults revealed 15 per cent are 'seriously worried' about their outgoings. Going down: Since the start of 2015, some of the UK's biggest supermarkets have further cut fuel prices . Since the start of this year, Britain's 'Big Four' supermarkets - Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco - have knocked 2p a litre off their prices for petrol and diesel. Asda was the first to announce its fuel price cuts yesterday but it wasn't long before the other major supermarkets announced matching reductions. The cuts mean Asda customers pay no more than 107.7p a litre for petrol and 114.7p a litre for diesel. The latest price cuts marked the thirteenth time since September that Asda has reduced fuel prices since the end of September taking, in total, 19p a litre off petrol and 15p a litre off diesel. Mike Coupe said today that prices could hit a £1-a-litre or go even lower.
Supermarket says like-for-like sales down 1.7% in 13 weeks to January 3 .
It is the first drop in sales over Christmas for at least a decade .
Boss Mike Coupe says outlook is 'challenging' and sales will fall again .
New CEO admits petrol price could now drop below £1-a-litre in 2015 .
Sainsbury's and Asda have launched a £450m price war with Aldi and Lidl .
Experts believe one in four shoppers will head to the discounters in 2015 .
Sainsbury's suffered sliding sales over Christmas - its first fall over the festive period for at least a decade. The supermarket said today like-for-like sales fell 1.7% in the 14 weeks to January 3 - a fourth consecutive quarterly fall - and boss Mike Coupe said the outlook remained 'challenging'. It is the first time in at least ten years that the retailer has suffered a fall over Christmas even though it said it enjoyed a record-breaking week before December 25 with 29.5 million customer transactions. Sainsbury's is the first of the Big Four to announce its results for the Christmas period, but while sales were down they were better than expected. Mr Coupe, who replaced Justin King as CEO in July, said Sainsbury's sold 'the same amount of stuff we sold last year at Christmas, but the prices were lower'. Results: Sainsburt's has said like-for-like sales fell 1.7% in the 14 weeks to January 3 and boss Mike Coupe said the outlook remained 'challenging' Analysts had forecasted sales would be down between 2.5 and 4.4 percent and represents an improvement from a second quarter decline of 2.8 percent. As a result shares opened up 6p at 241p this morning. The decline means there is huge pressure on its new chief executive, Mike Coupe, to come up with a big idea to halt the slide in sales, which he believes will continue to drop. He said: 'Sainsbury's has provided a great Christmas for our customers. Food price deflation and falling fuel prices have enabled our customers to treat themselves over the festive period. 'The outlook for the remainder of the financial year is set to remain challenging, with food price deflation likely to continue. We currently expect our fourth quarter like-for-like to be similar to that of our first half. To date, the supermarket giant has largely remained aloof from the price battle triggered by the rise of chains like Aldi, Lidl and Netto, believing its quality would retain the loyalty of shoppers. It came as experts predicted a 'discount revolution' where one in four shoppers will switch to a budget supermarket to save money in 2015. To fight the trend of falling sales across the big four Asda was the first to announce price cuts this morning, and was swiftly followed by Sainsbury's. Tesco and Morrisons are likely to follow. Asda has promised to spend £300million slashing the cost of 'essentials', including fruit and vegetables, cereal, milk, meat, eggs, fish, nappies and toilet rolls. Price comparison: With price drops across Asda, Aldi, Lidl and Sainsbury's, we've compared some of the essentials (source: moneysupermarket.com) Cutting prices: Asda said today it is ploughing £300million into price cuts in the first three months of this year . Today Sainsbury's will announce more than 700 permanent price cuts tomorrow, which are added to reductions on more than 200 introduced in the run-up to Christmas. While the likes of Tesco, Asda and Morrisons battle to keep up with discounting rivals Aldi and Lidl, high-end supermarkets remain popular with consumers. Upmarket Waitrose, which is owned by the John Lewis Partnership, today reported a 2.8 per cent increase in store sales over the Christmas period, results which are predicted to outperform all of the firm's major rivals. The employee-owned company said total sales in the five weeks to 3 January, excluding fuel, were £728million, up 7 per cent year-on-year. The upmarket grocery chain's online sales also fared well, increasing by 26.3 per cent. Waitrose's managing director Mark Price said: 'As a business owned by the people who work here, we can take the long-term view and our Christmas results show the effectiveness of our strategy of investing in good value, in making our shops attractive destinations and in building our online business'. Although Waitrose has won sales from rivals it has not been immune to the ongoing industry price war. In September it posted a 9.4 per cent fall in first-half operating profit, partly because it had to cut prices and step up promotions to remain competitive. Mr Coupe has pledged a £150million investment per year for the next three years, which would translate into cuts to regular prices on more than 1,000 of the most popular items in customers' baskets and followed 200 lower prices put in place in November. Many products have been reduced by £1, such as a whole roasting chicken, a pack of ten Taste the Difference Ultimate Sausages, 460g packs of chicken breast fillets and 240g packs of salmon fillets. Sainsbury’s is promoting the fact that it is delivering big reductions on the cost of a full English breakfast fry up. It has cut the price of a large white sandwich loaf by 30p to £1, while a pack of eight pork sausages is down by the same amount to £1.10. Butter is down by 15p to 95p, a litre of UHT milk by 20p to 70p and a litre of orange juice down by 10p to £1. The price of a pack of large Happy Eggs Large free range eggs came down from £2.15 to £1.90 in the autumn. The update comes during a key week for the retailers announcing Christmas trading figures, with Tesco and Marks & Spencer due to disclose sales numbers tomorrow. Supermarkets are engaged in a fierce price war amid a squeeze on their market share by discounters Aldi and Lidl while upmarket food offerings from Waitrose and M&S are also doing well - with Waitrose yesterday reporting a 2.8% Christmas sales rise. Sainsbury's own high-end range, Taste the Difference, did well over the third quarter with growth of five per cent, including prosecco sales up 30 per cent. It also sold more than 57 million mince pies and more than 550,000 turkeys, up eight per cent year-on-year. Experts have said that although discount shoppers are happy with the prices, they found customers are getting increasingly upset about the shopping experience. Long queues, foreign workers and lack of choice are among the top moans of those more used to the comparative luxury of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's or Morrisons. Two studies revealed the growth of the called 'Lidl Class', shoppers who now do either a weekly or simple top up shop at the discount chains. According to comparison site GoCompare, 26 per cent of Brits will, this year, do more of their shopping at one of these chains as part of their moneysaving strategy. Other plans to rein in spending include giving up coffee shop treats and takeaways as their poll of 2,000 adults revealed 15 per cent are 'seriously worried' about their outgoings. Going down: Since the start of 2015, some of the UK's biggest supermarkets have further cut fuel prices . Since the start of this year, Britain's 'Big Four' supermarkets - Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco - have knocked 2p a litre off their prices for petrol and diesel. Asda was the first to announce its fuel price cuts yesterday but it wasn't long before the other major supermarkets announced matching reductions. The cuts mean Asda customers pay no more than 107.7p a litre for petrol and 114.7p a litre for diesel. The latest price cuts marked the thirteenth time since September that Asda has reduced fuel prices since the end of September taking, in total, 19p a litre off petrol and 15p a litre off diesel. Mike Coupe said today that prices could hit a £1-a-litre or go even lower.
Sainsbury's suffered sliding sales over Christmas - its first fall over the festive period for at least a decade. The supermarket said today like-for-like sales fell 1.7% in the 14 weeks to 'challenging'. It is the first time in at least January 3 and boss Mike Coupe said the outlook one in four shoppers will switch to a budget their market share by discounters Aldi and Lidl supermarkets - Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and