Tesco's record £1.6bn profit

SUPERMARKETS giant Tesco today highlighted its dominance of the UK food market by posting another set of record annual results.

Pre-tax profits rose 17.6% to £1.6bn, with the underlying figure at the upper end of City expectations at £1.71bn, a gain of 21.9%.

Sales worldwide were £33.6bn - up 18.7% - while £26.9bn was rung up at the tills of the Hertfordshire-based group's UK supermarkets.

Analysts' forecasts had ranged between £1.66bn-£1.72bn.

Tesco also announced it anticipates creating 20,000 new jobs worldwide in the current year.

Underlying diluted earnings per share increased by 16.7% to 16.31p. Group capital expenditure for the year was £2.3bn, up from £2.1bn the previous year. Tesco anticipates group capital expenditure to be around £2.4bn this year.

Tesco.com made a profit of £28m, up from £12m, on sales of £577m, up 29% on last year.

The group is proposing a final dividend of 4.77p, up from 4.33m previously, making a total dividend of 6.84p, up from 6.2p the previous year.