Trading Statement

Tesco PLC
04 December 2007


Tuesday 4 December 2007


                                   TESCO PLC

                        THIRD QUARTER TRADING STATEMENT

                           GROUP SALES GROW BY 11.8%


Chief Executive, Terry Leahy commented:

'We've maintained pleasing progress during the third quarter across the group.
Overall sales growth has strengthened in the period, with International
delivering a particularly strong performance, and the UK has again done well,
with good growth in our core food categories. Our first Fresh & Easy stores in
the United States have been very well-received by customers.'

GROUP SALES

Group sales for the thirteen weeks ending 24th November 2007 increased by 11.8%,
up from 9.2% in the first half, driven by all five parts of our strategy. Our
rapidly expanding international operations have delivered excellent growth, the
core UK business has made solid progress and our non-food ranges - helped by the
launch of Tesco Direct - have performed well. Our retailing services are
continuing to attract new customers through a strong pipeline of new products
and Dobbies Garden Centres has made a good start as part of the Group.

STRONG INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE

International sales were up 25.7% at actual exchange rates and by 21.4% at
constant rates. This included a particularly strong performance in Asia, where
sales grew by 29% at constant rates. We have also seen rapid growth in all our
Central European markets. We are on track to deliver a substantial programme of
new store openings this year, which will provide over seven million square feet
of new selling space in International. At the same time, the conversion of the
acquired Leader Price stores in Poland and the Makro business in Malaysia has
gone very well.

SOLID GROWTH IN UK BUSINESS

We are making good progress in the UK, with total sales growing by 7.6%.
Like-for-like sales for the quarter increased by 4.8%, including petrol, and by
4.1% excluding petrol. We saw inflation, excluding petrol, of 0.8%, which was
similar to the first half, driven by higher market prices for commodities and
seasonal fresh foods. Non-food remains deflationary. Net new stores, excluding
petrol, contributed 3.0% (2.8% including petrol). Tesco Direct and our tesco.com
internet grocery business have both delivered very strong sales in the quarter.

FINANCIAL POSITION*

Operationally the business is performing according to plan with sufficient
financing in place to achieve planned growth.


Contacts:-

Investor Relations:         Steve Webb                  01992 644 800
Press:                      Jonathan Church             01992 646 606
                            Angus Maitland              0207 379 5151


* This additional disclosure forms our Interim Management Statement which has
  been included as part of our adoption of the Transparency Directive. This is
  being implemented in the UK through provisions in the Companies Act and FSA
  rules. The aim of this Directive is to enhance transparency on EU capital
  markets by establishing rules for the disclosure of periodic financial reports
  and of major shareholdings for companies whose securities are admitted to
  trading on a regulated market in the EU.




                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange