Tesco recorded its ‘biggest Christmas ever’, as it delivered record breaking sales and its highest market share since 2016.

The UK’s largest retailer reported that in its third quarter, which covers 13 weeks to 23 November 2024, its like for like sales rose by 2.8%, while the six weeks to 4 January, Christmas sales shot up by 3.8%.

Online sales led the supermarket giant’s growth, with sales up 10.8%, with over 1.2 million Tesco Whoosh orders placed across the Christmas period.

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Food sales shot up by 4.7%, driven by volume growth across the period, with an exceptionally strong contribution from fresh food. Tesco Finest sales surged by 15%, aided by a range of over  300 Finest festive products including expanded Finest Chef’s Collection range

Tesco chief executive Ken Murphy described the retailers’ performance as “strong”, pointing to the investments in quality and innovation within it Christmas range, as well as in-store and online customer experience.

Looking ahead, the supermarket chain revealed it expected to hit its upgraded guidance, delivering a retail adjusted operating profit for the 2024/25 financial year of around £2.9bn.

The news follows data from Kantar earlier this week showing Tesco achieving the greatest market share gain of any supermarket during the period, rising 0.8 percentage points to 28.5%.