'Good Christmas' for M&S

HIGH street giant Marks & Spencer today reported a "good Christmas" as the firm posted its first like-for-like sales growth in more than two years.

The retail bellwether, which enjoyed record one-day sales of 50 million on December 23, grew same-store sales by 0.8 per cent in the 13 weeks to December 26.

This is slightly below City hopes but M&S added that including the first day of its sales on December 27 would have added a further one per cent to like-for-like sales growth.

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The update comes a day after rivals Next and John Lewis posted better-than-expected trading figures for the festive season.

But M&S added that it expected trading to remain challenging this year due to "continuing economic uncertainty".

M&S was trading against far easier comparisons than in 2008, when it registered a 7.1 per cent fall in same-store sales at the height of the recession - its worst performance since 1999.

Today's growth continues the run of improving sales trends seen since then, despite a difficult year for the business.

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M&S saw general merchandise sales - including clothes - up 1.2 per cent as the group refused to cut prices in the run-up to Christmas in contrast with last year's two one-day pre-Christmas sales to tempt in hard-pressed shoppers.

Food sales were 0.4 per cent ahead of a year earlier as shoppers bought more than 36 million mince pies and a million bottles of champagne, the retailer added.