{"id":316826,"date":"2026-02-25T17:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/316826\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T17:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:33:09","slug":"australias-woolworths-tops-profit-forecasts-after-cutting-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/316826\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s Woolworths Tops Profit Forecasts After Cutting Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top Australian grocer Woolworths reported forecast-beating first-half profit and raised guidance for the full year as cost-conscious shoppers responded to price cuts, putting its shares on track for their biggest advance in decades.<\/p>\n

The trading update<\/a> for the six months through December marked a turnaround for the company, which along with No. 2 rival Coles<\/a> supplies two-thirds of Australian<\/a> groceries.<\/p>\n

After analysts said Woolworths<\/a> was driving customers away by charging too much during a cost-of-living crisis<\/a>, the retailer has been cutting operating costs and charging customers less.<\/p>\n

Underlying net profit rose 16% to A$859 million for the 27-week period ended 4 January, beating the Visible Alpha consensus estimate of A$813.5 million.<\/p>\n

The underlying figure excluded one-off items like the impact of industrial action and reimbursing employees affected by an underpayment claim.<\/p>\n

Woolworths said Australian food sales<\/a>, its biggest earner, rose 5.8% in the first seven weeks of the second half, ahead of the Visible Alpha consensus forecast of 3.4%.<\/p>\n

Outlook<\/p>\n

It said full-year earnings growth appeared likely to be near the top of a previously provided range of “mid-to-high single digits”.<\/p>\n

“It has been a very promotionally intense period,” said CEO Amanda Bardwell on a call with analysts.<\/p>\n

“Customers want value but they also want reliable value,” she added.<\/p>\n

Woolworths shares were last up more than 11%, putting them on course for their biggest intraday gain since 1997 as analysts upgraded their forecasts for the A$38 billion company.<\/p>\n

“Given year-to-date food sales growth … this revised guidance still appears conservative,” Ord Minnett analysts said in a client note.<\/p>\n

The company’s 3.6% rise in Australian food sales in the July-to-December period was “the strongest number we have seen in some time from WOW”, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Toner.<\/p>\n

With Coles reporting first-half results on Friday, “the market will get a much clearer picture of how the grocery wars are actually playing out between this duopoly”, said Josh Gilbert, a market analyst at eToro.<\/p>\n

Woolworths declared an interim dividend of 45 Australian cents per share, compared with 39 Australian cents a year earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top Australian grocer Woolworths reported forecast-beating first-half profit and raised guidance for the full year as cost-conscious shoppers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60,127027],"class_list":["post-316826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-woolworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}