Morrisons has reported encouraging Christmas sales, crediting its increased competitiveness for the improved performance.

Group like-for-like sales excluding fuel rose 3.6 per cent in the nine weeks to 6 January, with retail contributing 0.6 per cent of the increase and wholesale 3.0 per cent.

Chief executive David Potts said Morrisons had responded well to changing consumer behaviour, with price competitiveness to the fore - its basket of key Christmas lines remained the same price as the year before.

Potts added that customer satisfaction increased significantly, with the strongest areas of improvement being colleague friendliness and checkout experience.

'This is Morrisons' fourth consecutive Christmas of like-for-like sales growth during the turnaround,' Potts continued. 'Our performance shows colleagues are listening hard and responding to customers, providing consistently great value and good quality when it matters most.

'Morrisons is well set to keep improving the shopping trip and become more and more relevant for more customers.'