John David Group, the owner of the JD Sports chain, has defied the downturn on the high street to report an advance in trading in recent weeks.

The company said like-for-like sales growth has “marginally improved” in the seven weeks to May 31 on the trends reported at its full-year results in April, when they were running at 4.2 per cent. However, JD cautioned that, while gross margins have been maintained, “further increases are proving to be challenging to achieve as expected”.

Matthew McEachran at Kaupthing Securities said: “This is an excellent performance and well ahead of our full-year assumptions of flat like-for-like sales and a 0.2 percentage point fall in gross margins”.

JD has benefited from its focus on sports-led fashion and footwear, which has insulated it from the price competition pursued by Sports World and JJB Sports and a reliance on replica kit sales - a strategy regarded as especially sound, given the failure of England to qualify for Euro 2008, which began on Saturday.

The group has also been quick to close underperforming stores - 36 last year - and has strengthened its upmarket positioning with the £18.6m acquisition of 49 Bank stores.

However, the shares have fallen 39 per cent over the last 12 months - underperforming the FTSE all share by 31 per cent - amid concerns that it will not be able to escape the impact of the consumer slowdown. The shares have also been hampered by their illiquidity: 57 per cent of JD is held by Pentland, owner of the Lacoste and Speedo brands.

JD’s shares rose 6p at 359p in early trading.

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