Sainsbury seeks Olympic and jubilee boost J Sainsbury has identified this summer's London Olympic Games and the Queen's diamond jubilee as drivers for growth this year, as the FTSE 100 supermarket group reported an uptick in recent trading. The UK's third-largest supermarket chain by sales on Wednesday said that sales from stores open at least a year rose 2.1 per cent year on year in the 10 weeks to March 17, excluding fuel. After 0.8 percentage points of growth from store extensions are stripped out, however, underlying sales for the quarter rose 1.8 per cent. Although Sainsbury's main rivals have yet to report figures for the period, the positive figures are in contrast to larger rival Tesco, which recently issued its first profit warning in 20 years and saw the resignation of Richard Brasher, chief executive of Tesco's UK operations. Sainsbury's 1.8 per cent underlying sales growth for the quarter is a jump on the 0.2 per cent recorded in the 14 weeks to January 7, suggesting that it has taken market share from rivals such as Tesco and Asda. The fourth-quarter performance brought Sainsbury's like-for-like growth for the financial year to 2.1 per cent, or 0.4 per cent underlying growth after store extensions and value added tax are stripped out. Justin King, chief executive, said the figures "completed a good performance for the year against a challenging backdrop. We continue to outperform the market and gain market share. According to data from Kantar Worldpanel, Sainsbury's share of the UK grocery market edged up by 0.1 percentage points to 16.7 per cent in the 12 weeks to January 22, while Tesco fell back by 0.6 per cent to 29.9 per cent. Asda has a 17.5 per cent share of the market after its acquisition of Netto, while Wm Morrison holds a 12.3 per cent share. Sales of Sainsbury's own-brand Basics range rose 10 per cent year on year, as cash-strapped consumers traded down to cheaper items. The group also highlighted its £85m investment over the past year to improve its fresh food offerings, stepping up competition with rival Morrison, which has found recent success after boosting its fresh food range. Improving their offerings of fresh produce, fish, meat and baked goods has become a target for all four of the UK's biggest supermarkets, with Tesco investing £300m to revive its UK business and Asda planning to spend £15m developing its meat business and £1.6m on upgrading fish counters. Mr King said Sainsbury had added 1.4m square feet of trading space over the past year, and was targeting an additional 1.2m sq ft in the next 12 months. Freddie George, an analyst at Seymour Pierce, reiterated his "hold" recommendation on Sainsbury shares and noted: "There is limited operational gearing in the earnings with limited potential for like-for-like growth in a competitive market while the company is likely to rein back on its expansion plans. In addition, we are becoming less confident on the prospects for non food and online. Sainsbury shares rose 7.1p, or 2.3 per cent, to 312.6p in early London trading.