Tesco posted a 5.7 per cent increase in UK Christmas same-store sales today in what was the best performance of all the listed UK supermarkets.
The headline sales growth rate for the seven weeks to January 7th, which excludes fuel sales, is just above the 5.5 per cent figure for the third quarter. Total UK sales grew 10.1 per cent, or by 7.2 per cent on a same-store basis including fuel.
Chief executive Terry Leahy said at the time of the group's third-quarter trading update that Tesco was likely to take an additional £60 million sterling ($106.2 million) in costs due to higher energy and raw materials prices as well as increased business taxes.
But finance director Andrew Higginson said he was comfortable with market forecasts for full-year profits.
Mr Higginson said that for the 2006-7 financial year, Tesco was unlikely to budget for UK same-store sales growth higher than the 3 per cent to 4 per cent assumption it had used for the current year, although the company is traditionally conservative in its budgeting.