Alliance Boots, Britain's biggest pharmacy chain, saw a 3% rise in underlying sales at British shops in December, driven by demand for Christmas gifts, electrical beauty products and toiletries.
In a letter to staff, the group said sales at shops open more than a year rose 1.9% in the three months to tne end of December, with a 6% rise in like-for-like dispensing volume helping to offset a 1.7% fall in like-for-like retail revenues.
Alliance Boots was bought by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Executive Chairman Stefano Pessina for £11 billion sterling in June 2007 in Europe's biggest leveraged buyout deal.
It has 50 stores in Ireland and employs over 1,600.
The group was created the year before from the merger of British pharmacy chain Boots and pan-European drugs distributor Alliance Unichem.
'The challenging economic times and wholesale markets mean that we will have to work even harder to meet our targets for the final quarter of our financial year ending March 31,' Pessina said in the letter. 'In 2009 we are likely to face the most difficult market conditions in recent memory,' he added.
Many of Britain's retailers are struggling as indebted consumers curb spending amid rising unemployment, sliding house prices and fears of a deep recession. Alliance Boots said fourth-quarter group revenues rose 11%, excluding VAT and other sales-related taxes.
Revenue at its health and beauty division, which runs over 3,000 shops across Europe and includes the Boots chain, rose 4.2%, including an increase of 1.3% on a constant currency like-for-like basis.
Revenue in the drugs wholesale business rose 16.3%. But adjusting for acquisitions and disposals and on a constant currency basis, like-for-like revenue rose just 0.2%.
