Tesco today reported a 3.1% rise in underlying sales at UK stores open more than a year for the six weeks to January 5, missing analysts' expectations.
Analysts had on average expected the supermarket group to report UK like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, up 4%.
Group sales, at the world's third-largest supermarket group after Wal-Mart Stores and Carrefour, rose 12.8%.
Tesco's total sales in the UK grew by 8% in the six week period. The retailer said non-food sales performed well with good market share growth across most categories, including clothing, entertainment and books.
Tesco's online arms, tesco.com and Tesco Direct, saw sales increase by 24% to more than £190m sterling. More than two million orders were delivered in the six weeks, the firm said, with sales of MP3 players, digital cameras and laptops particularly strong.
Overall international sales grew by 26.9% in the period, with strong growth in both Europe and Asia. In Central Europe there was sales growth of almost 30% - with Turkey growing by over 80% and Malaysia by more than 60%.
Tesco said the response to its Fresh & Easy supermarket chain in the US had also been 'very encouraging', with 28 stores now trading in Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix.
The trading update comes a week after till roll figures from research firm TNS suggested that Tesco's share of the UK's £32 billion grocery market remained largely unchanged during the run-up to Christmas compared to a year ago.
TNS said the share was 31.5% during the 12 weeks to December 30 last year, up from 31.4% on the year.
Rival Morrison appeared to enjoy the best performance of the big UK retailers over the festive period, according to TNS, increasing its share from 11% to 11.4% or £2.4 billion. One analyst said the data suggested Tesco could have lost some sales to Morrisons.
