and was confident of a strong performance.
A 0.6% increase was better than the retail average a 0.3% decline noted by the British Retail Consortium. It , and Morrisons, which reported 1% growth earlier this week.
Premium grocers and .
Tesco Direct sales increased 18%, with strong sales in toys, gaming and small domestic appliances.
Tesco group sales increased 7.6% compared to the same period last year, led by a 14.2% increase in international sales.
Terry Leahy, chief executive at Tesco, said: "The Group has continued to make good progress, helped by strong growth across our international businesses, which delivered over half of the Group’s growth.
"Our performance remains solid but was hindered in the run up to the important Christmas trading period in the UK by the disruptive effects of the severe winter weather conditions.
"Our staff and suppliers did a fantastic job in delivering a great shopping trip for customers in difficult circumstances."
Gemma Lovelock, retail analyst at TLC Marketing Worldwide, said supermarkets had performed well this Christmas, but other retailers would suffer as a result and this trend would continue into 2011.
She said "Although weaker than expected, Tesco's Christmas was still in the black and rounds up a pretty good week for the UK's supermarkets.
"But one sector's gain is another sector's loss. There is only so much money in the economy at present and the supermarkets are swallowing a lot of it up by default.
"The outperformance of the supermarkets is contributing to the weaker performance of other retailers, most recently Dixons Retail, in the run-up to Christmas."
.
.jpg)
.jpg)