Supermarket giant Morrisons today said it had enjoyed a bumper festive season after again posting record sales.

In the six weeks to January 4, the Bradford-based company said total takings had been 16 per cent higher than during the same period last year.

Morrisons added that the speculation surrounding its long-running bid for Safeway had failed to distract the company from its core business - 12 months to the day since the move was first announced.

And today joint managing director Bob Stott said the store had managed to hold on to many new customers attracted to Morrisons for the first time by the media coverage of the bid.

He said that the bid for Safeway - the subject of a fresh £3 billion offer last month - should be completed by March, despite a delay in sending offer documents to Safeway shareholders.

The documents were due to be sent out by January 12, but that has now been put back to the week commencing January 19 due to the lack of available court dates over the festive period.

Mr Stott revealed Morrisons' performance was strong across the food, off licence, home and leisure, and petrol sectors. He added that the takings for the first 48 weeks of the financial year were also on target to meet City expectations and 15.4 per cent up on the same period last year.

"We are satisfied, and we might even say we are pleased, with the results," he said. "We had a strong seasonal offer throughout the store and good availability because you can have the best retail offer in the world, but it is no good unless the products are there when people come in.

"Despite all the efforts to put the Safeway deal to bed before Christmas, these results have shown that we have a strong management team that is capable of doing two things at the same time."

Mr Stott said Morrisons was not afraid of threats by rivals Sainsbury, Tesco and Asda to increase price competition in the new year, insisting "they would struggle to make it harder than it already is".

And he said the Safeway takeover speculation had encouraged shoppers to look at Morrisons for the first time.

He added: "We did get a lot of benefit as some people said 'we will go and have a look at them' and we have managed to continue this performance over the year.

"Hopefully, that indicates we have satisfied these people and they want to come back."