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Sales at Marks and Spencer’s retail and home department fell by 25.1% over the holiday period.
In a post-Christmas trading update the company described its performance as “robust in the face of volatile Covid headwinds”, with total revenue from the second UK lockdown falling by 40.5%.
While sales in M&S’s stores were down the company reported that its online store has continued to do well, making £353m in revenue since December.
Overall, total UK sales at M&S were down 8.2% to £5.29bn.
Steve Rowe, chief executive said: “Given the on-off restrictions and distortions in demand patterns our trading was robust over the Christmas period.
“More importantly beneath the Covid clouds we saw a very strong performance from the Food business including Ocado Retail and a further acceleration of Clothing and Home online.”
He added: “I want to thank all my colleagues for a first-class execution of Christmas for our customers in near impossible conditions.
“Near term trading remains very challenging but we are continuing to accelerate change under our Never the Same Again programme to ensure the business emerges from the pandemic in a very different shape.”
