LONDON (Reuters) - Waitrose, the upmarket British grocer owned by the John Lewis Partnership (JLP.UL) [JLPLC.UL], posted a 2.8 percent rise in same store sales over the five week Christmas period - an outcome that is likely to outperform all its major rivals.
The employee-owned firm, which trades from 334 stores, said on Tuesday total sales in the five weeks to Jan. 3, excluding fuel, were 728 million pounds ($1.1 billion), up 7.0 percent year-on-year.
Grocery sales through Waitrose.com grew 26.3 percent.
"As a business owned by the people who work here, we can take the long-term view and our Christmas results show the effectiveness of our strategy of investing in good value, in making our shops attractive destinations and in building our online business," said Managing Director Mark Price.
Analysts don't expect any of Britain's so called "big four" grocers, market leader Tesco (L:TSCO), Wal-Mart's (N:WMT) Asda, Sainsbury's (L:SBRY) and Morrisons (L:MRW), to post like-for-like sales gains over the Christmas period.
However, they do expect upmarket rival Marks & Spencer (L:MKS) to report a 0.9 percent rise.
Waitrose has been one of the winners of the polarisation in the British grocery market that has seen premium-end grocers as well as budget stores Aldi and Lidl gain share at the expense of the big four.
However, while Waitrose has won sales from rivals it has not been immune to an ongoing industry price war. In September it posted a 9.4 percent fall in first-half operating profit, partly because it had to cut prices and step up promotions to remain competitive.
(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Neil Maidment)