Morrisons is competing with Aldi and Lidl with 400 new convenience stores

Morrisons is opening more convenience stores as its price war with Aldi and Lidl bears fruit.

The supermarket group says it plans to open a further 400 Morrisons Daily stores, taking the number to 2,000 by 2025.

Since the private equity takeover, the company has lost customers to the discounters and relinquished its status as Britain’s fourth largest grocer to Aldi two years ago. But boss Rami Baitieh said yesterday that a price match program launched in February had got off to a “good start”.

He said there was “increasing confidence” among customers as Morrisons posted sales of £3.8 billion in the second quarter for the three months to April 28, up 3.7 per cent from a years earlier.

This saw profits in the first half of the financial year, excluding petrol stations, rise 16 per cent to £321m.

Morrisons also made some progress in reducing its massive debt pile, reducing it by 35 percent from a peak of £6.2 billion to £4 billion.