Price cuts and an increasing number of affluent customers helped Wm Morrison, the Bradford-based supermarket, report a like-for-like sales increase of 8.2% in the first quarter.

The strong sales figure beat analysts’ forecasts of around 7.5% growth. Marc Bolland, the chief executive of the UK’s fourth-largest supermarket chain, said that Morrisons is taking customers from all its main competitors. Since the start of 2009, the chain has gained 1m customers, Bolland said.

'This is a particularly good result which is on top of the similar level of growth we reported in last year’s firstquarter update,' he added. Over the last two years, like-for-like sales in certain stores have risen by 25%.

Daily Telegraph