Tesco has experienced positive sales over the Christmas season in 2009.

UK supermarket giant Tesco has released its Christmas and New Year trading statement, showing a healthy rise in sales over the festive season and its best results for three years.

The company saw UK like-for-like sales, excluding petrol and VAT, rise by 4.9% in the six weeks to 9 January. According to Tesco, this was the strongest Christmas performance for three years.

The positive financial performance over Christmas has been attributed to Tesco’s many customer offers in store, including the Double Clubcard Points promotion.

Online sales were extremely positive over the holiday season, with a growth of 20% in both food and non-food sales.

Tesco’s Finest food range also sold particularly well during the six weeks.

Terry Leahy, Chief Executive of Tesco, said: “We’ve delivered a very strong performance over the Christmas and New Year period. It was a great Christmas for Tesco customers with an excellent seasonal range in store and online.

“The Tesco team delivered a great shopping trip for customers and I’d like to thank all our staff and also our suppliers for their tremendous efforts, particularly during the freezing weather.”

Overseas sales also continued to grow over the festive period, with Tesco stores in the US and Asia performing particularly well.