Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s today boasted its best-ever Christmas as it threw down the gauntlet to rivals.

The firm said it had 22.6 million customers in the final week before Christmas, and its busiest ever trading day on December 23.

The first of the “big four” UK grocers to report said overall like-for-like sales excluding fuel rose 4.5 per cent in the 13 weeks to January 3.

Sainsbury’s, which has stores in Telford, Shrewsbury, Bridgnorth, Oswestry and Welshpool, also saw its highest ever trading performances for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, as well as record orders for its online home delivery service. 

The better-than-expected trading figures – an increase on the supermarket’s 4.3 per cent second-quarter sales growth – is likely to increase the pressure on market leader Tesco. 

Tesco reported a sharp fall in sales growth to two per cent at the end of last year due to reviving competition and its major investment in discount ranges. 

Sainsbury’s today said its own cheaper “basics” range saw sales rocket more than 40 per cent year-on-year. 

And it reported “good growth” from its non-food offerings after events in the run-up to Christmas such as November’s half-price toy promotion, in which it sold three million toys in seven days. 

Chief executive Justin King expects a “particularly challenging” economic climate to continue during 2009 but said the firm would keep investing in price and promotions to continue its progress. 

Nick Bubb, retail analyst at Pali International, said the figures were “better than we dared hope”, reflecting good non-food growth and product availability as well as advertising and promotions. 

Hargreaves Lansdown equities analyst Keith Bowman added: “Sainsbury’s appears to be gauging the mood of UK consumers extremely well.”

l Administrators for music, DVD and games retailer Zavvi, which has a store in Shrewsbury, said today it was closing 22 UK stores with the loss of 178 jobs. A spokesman for Zavvi in Shrewsbury said the Pride Hill store was not one of the stores earmarked to close.

By Sarah Bullock