At £309m, profits were at the lower end of analyst expectations which ranged £300m-£332m. However, the company said the first five weeks of the second half of the year remain encouraging. Group sales rose 8.4% to £9.6bn, boosted by a 7.5% rise in sales at its UK stores.
Sainsbury's has been heavily focused on developing its online shopping service, Sainsbury's to You, and the group said it had increased its investment in the service by £13m to £29m. This excludes pre-closure operating losses of £4m in the Taste joint venture with Carlton, which was abandoned on September 1.
Sainsbury's to You's operating losses increased during the first half as the company expanded its geographic coverage. The company has opened 24 more in-store picking centres since the same time last year.
As a result of this growing list of online shoppers and customers of its loyalty Reward Card, the company has also ploughed resources into managing its customer database.
Sainsbury's also increased its focus on direct marketing activity with the opening of a new customer data warehouse.
Sainsbury's group chief executive Sir Peter Davis said, "We have built a new customer data warehouse to enable us to better use the very valuable customer data from the Reward Card. We have also relaunched our Sainsbury's to You website on a new IT platform -- this has improved speed, performance and the visual attributes of the site.
"We have introduced much-improved IT systems in our new business centre, which deliver a quantum leap in performance and facilitate new ways of working."
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