M&S suffered a sales fall of 2.9% in its fashion, home and beauty products which it said was still suffering from stock and inventory issues following the cyber-attack.
Food sales were up 5.5%, which M&S’s boss said was down to its “Christmas hero lines”. The company also pointed to its Italian ready meals, in-store bakery and deli as areas of growth.
Chief executive Stuart Machin said: “Food sales were strong and the business continues to outperform, hitting a new market share milestone in the period.
“Fashion, Home & Beauty is getting back on track as we work through the tail end of recovery,” he added.
Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell, said the fall in fashion sales was “going to disappoint a lot of people as the past few years suggested that M&S had finally cracked the right formula to look smart with clothing”.
He added that rival fashion chain Next – which reported strong Christmas sales earlier this week – seemed to have an “edge” that M&S lacked.
Tesco boss Ken Murphy said he was “delighted” with the supermarket’s performance over Christmas amid “intense” competition.
The firm said food sales were up 5.2% with particularly strong sales of fresh produce and party food.
Murphy highlighted the performance of the Tesco Finest range, which saw sales growth of 13%.
The supermarket is now expecting to report annual operating profits at the upper end of the £2.9bn-£3.1bn range it predicted in October.