International sales, which includes the Republic of Ireland business and Tesco operations in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Thailand, South Korea and five other countries, were up just over 16% during the same period. The company did not break down the performance in individual countries.

In its home market in the UK, Tesco faces a somewhat reinvigorated Sainsbury, which means that chief executive Terry Leady could find it harder to increase market share in the future, despite overall growth in trading.

Sainsbury was the UK's biggest grocery retailer until 1995, when it was overtaken by Tesco. Sainsbury is now in third position with 16.2% of the market, behind the Wal-Mart owned Asda (16.7%) and Tesco, which controls 30.5% of the market.

Tesco is reportedly planning a series of aggressive price cuts in the UK in order to further expand its position. The company's UK market share increased by 1.5 percentage points in the past year and it is now facing criticism in some quarters for being too powerful.

Some analysts believe that Tesco will focus more in the future on international growth, with India being cited as a key target market.

The company plans to open additional stores in the Irish market, and most market observers consider that an all-out attack on the convenience sector remains a longterm goal.