Retailer Marks & Spencer reported a rise in Christmas sales as the boost from its generally more affluent customer base helped to offset the disruption caused by severe winter weather in December.
Britain's biggest clothing retailer, which also sells homewares and upmarket groceries, said sales at UK stores open at least a year rose 2.8 per cent in the 13 weeks to January 1st, the third quarter of its financial year.
M&S was buoyed by £50 million of food sales on December 23rd, a company record. It said said big-impact promotions were behind the surge.
"We continue to expect the trading conditions ahead to be more challenging as consumers' disposable incomes come under pressure from increased VAT rates and the impact of public spending cuts," M&S said.
"In addition, we are facing increased commodity prices and significantly tougher comparatives."
That is the fifth straight quarterly rise, above analysts' average forecast for a 2 per cent increase, but down from a 5.3 per cent rise reported in the second quarter.
Retailers across northern Europe were hit by heavy snowfalls in the run-up to Christmas. Germany's Metro missed fourth-quarter sales forecasts today, blaming bad weather, while the British Retail Consortium said like-for-like UK sales fell 0.3 per cent last month.
Marks & Spencer, which also operates in Ireland, estimated that adverse weather cut sales of general merchandise, which includes clothing and homewares, by 3 per cent and food sales by 1 per cent.
But general merchandise sales were boosted 3 per cent by the inclusion of more days of the post-Christmas clearance sale than in the same quarter last year.
Reuters