Wm Morrison, the Bradford-based supermarket chain, said yesterday that it had conquered the South of England at last after reporting its strongest sales growth for four years and lifting profit targets.

Marc Bolland, the chief executive, said that the group’s biggest advertising campaign, which featured the celebrities Denise van Outen, Lulu and Alan Hansen, helped to pick up four million extra customers across its 375 stores in the run-up to Christmas.

Like-for-like sales in the six weeks to January 6 were up 9.5 per cent — above expectations and more than three times the rate of growth at Tesco.

The gains were strongest in the South, where Morrisons’ emphasis on value has struggled to win over customers brought up on J Sainsbury.

Before acquiring Safeway five years ago, Morrisons only ran a handful of stores in the Home Counties.

When it first took over Safeway, customers in London complained that olives were being replaced by hot pies.

Mr Bolland said: “Many people have never been to a Morrisons before. People were alerted to the deals, they came through the door having seen the advertising and they really liked what they saw.

“But the advertising was only part of the success. We had industry-leading availability and we improved our range. We had 8,000 new products. We sold 40 per cent more fresh salmon this Christmas. Orders for turkeys to be picked up in the store were up 50 per cent.

"I’m not the person to say we won market share from the left or the right, but it is clear that in the South we were stronger than some of our competitors.”

Mr Bolland said there was no doubt that like-for-like growth would ease over the coming months and competition would intensify.

However, he insisted that Morrisons was confident of retaining its new customers. Some include Morrisons staff members — nearly 15 per cent of the sales growth over Christmas came from the chain’s 120,000 workers taking advantage of a new 10 per cent discount card.

Mr Bolland said: “I have learnt that you only look at the next day, but I expect absolutely that people will return in the coming months.”

Morrisons said that profits for the current year were likely to come in at the top end of forecasts — £570 million — in part because of the deferral of £30 million of costs into the 2008-09 financial year.

Shares in the group, now Britain’s second-biggest retailer by market value at £8 billion, ended the day up 3.58 per cent at 311¼p during another volatile session for the stock market.

Nick Bubb, a retail analyst for Pali International, said that there were still question marks over Morrisons’ growth prospects, given that it had no online operation and a relatively small nonfood range.

Mr Bubb added: “We shouldn’t get too carried away with Morrisons — the others will fight back. Tesco, in particular, will not be content to be below par.”

However, Andrew Kasoulis, a retail analyst for Credit Suisse, said it was clear that Morrisons had been the big winner over Christmas. “We think Morrisons has generated trial footfall in its new regions in the South and Midlands, which, if sustained, could be key for future growth,” he said.

“The company cautions that it is ‘still at an early stage with much to do throughout the business’, but we think it is clearly on track.”

Mr Bolland, who joined Morrisons two years ago, said that his priority remained continuing to improve the supermarket’s core fresh food product range in line with his turna-round plan.

A proposed £1 billion property sale remained “on ice”, given the turmoil in the global financial markets.

He also ruled out an outright bid for the rival Somerfield chain of supermarkets.

“We are not going to go into big clothing ranges or sell 20 different type of televisions,” Mr Bolland said. “We cannot do everything at the same time.”

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