Flu-stricken customers continued to boost sales at Boots in January, the company said, as it revealed healthy Christmas sales.

In the quarter that ended in December 1999, dispensing sales grew 10% while over-the-counter sales grew 6.4%.

"Increases of this order are continuing in January helped by a high incidence of flu and colds," the company said.

Beauty boom

Boots saw strong Christmas sales, helped in part by demand for beauty products.

Over the Christmas trading period, total sales were up 2.6% against the previous year on a like-for-like basis, stripping out revenues from new store space.

The growth was fuelled by a 4.1% increase in sales at its stores' health and beauty section.

"These results provide further evidence of the strength of our health and beauty business in the face of heightened price competition," chairman Lord Blyth said.

Demand for bicycles meant that like-for-like sales at accessory and bikes retailer Halfords jumped 10.5% over the Christmas period.

In the company's third quarter, overall retail sales jumped 4.7%, while like-for-like sales increased 2.5%.

Like-for-like sales jumped 2.2% at Boots the Chemist and 3.9% at its stores' health and beauty section. Total sales grew 4.3% and 5.0% respectively.

International ventures

Boots Retail International continued to grow, with total sales from the Netherlands, Thailand and Japan of £9.8m, compared with £4.7m last year.

The third quarter also saw Boots launch handbag.com.

Since its launch on 6 October last year, 300,000 individual users have visited the site and are staying onlinefor approximately 10 minutes per visit, the company said.

Boots is just the latest of a string of retailers to report positive results this Christmas.

Big department stores like Selfridges, Debenhams and Bentalls have also reported a strong Christmas selling season, as have electrical retailers like Dixons and Comet.

Luckily for Boots, it is not exposed to the more volatile clothing sector, which has seen far more mixed fortunes this Christmas.