News in brief: Morrisons loses most customers, Australia a drag on Michael Page, Stansted sees a December leap

The extent of Morrisons’ problems were laid bare today as latest data showed the supermarket lost more customers than any other High Street grocer in the run-up to Christmas.

Kantar Worldpanel found the UK’s fourth-biggest supermarket, which issued a shock profit warning last week, saw its market share fall from 12% last year to 11.5% today and was the only supermarket whose sales fell. Aldi and Lidl saw rises from 3.1% to 4% and 2.7% to 3.1% respectively.

Shares in recruiter Michael Page dipped today after it said that continuing challenging market conditions in Australia had more than wiped out improvements in the UK, Japan and the US in its fourth quarter.

Gross profits (revenues) for the last three months were down 1.2% at £125 million, leading to full-year profits off 2.5% at £514 million. The shares dropped 13.5p to 475.6p.

Stansted Airport had its busiest December in four years, with nearly 1.3 million passengers passing through its arrivals and departure halls.

It was a 7.7% jump on December 2012, and means the overall number of passengers using Stansted, which is owned by Manchester Airports Group, rose 2.2% to 17.8 million in 2013. That was the first full year of growth since 2007.