Sainsbury’s has announced that like-for-like sales were up by 4.9 per cent – or 5.9 excluding fuel – in the 12 weeks to 24 March.

Total sales for the quarter were up 6.6 per cent – or 7.8 per cent excluding fuel.

The company said that the results were slightly ahead of company expectations.

Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King said: 'We have now completed the second year of our Making Sainsbury's Great Again recovery plan and have delivered strong sales growth in our fourth quarter, the ninth consecutive quarter of growth.

“Like-for-like sales excluding fuel were slightly ahead of our expectations as we continued to grow market share in a strong market.”

The group has just £700m of revenue growth to deliver over the next 12 months to hit its promise to increase turnover by £2.5bn by March 2008.

“We're further ahead [of our target] today then we were three months ago,” added King. “This was growth on growth on growth.”

Sainsbury’s said it had reduced prices on 1,000 products in the quarter.