Morrisons beat forecasts for underlying sales in the key Christmas period, as premium products, online sales and competitive prices lured more shoppers into Britain's fourth biggest supermarket group.
The UK grocer said today that group like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, rose 2.8% in the 10 weeks to January 7, the bulk of its fourth quarter.
That was well ahead of analysts' average forecast of growth of 1.7% and third quarter growth of 2.5%.
UK shoppers, who have struggled in the last year with higher inflation, prioritised spending on food over the Christmas period, data showed today.
Morrisons, which trails market leader Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda, is trying to develop a broader business by turning around the performance of its more than 500 UK stores while also pursuing growth in online and wholesale markets.
Its outcome comprised retail growth of 2.1% and wholesale growth of 0.7%.
Morrisons said its expectations for the full 2017-18 year were unchanged.
Before today's update analysts' average forecast for 2017-18 underlying pretax profit was £371m, up from £337m made in 2016-17.
Morrisons is the first of Britain's big four supermarkets to report on Christmas trade. Sainsbury's reports tomorrow and Tesco updates on Thursday.
