BELEAGURED supermarket group Somerfield revealed it was managing to stabilise sales across its store estate, despite reporting half-year losses of £21.7m.

The group, which runs the Somerfield and Kwik Save high street chains, said sales were continuing to improve and that recovery was ''becoming more evident'' in current trading.

Like-for-like growth across Somerfield's supermarkets business was down 5.3 per cent in the 28 weeks to November 11, while like-for-like sales across the group's Kwik Save discount business were down by 11.1 per cent.

Executive chairman John von Spreckelsen pointed out, however, that during the first eight weeks of the second half, like-for-like sales across Somerfield stores were up 0.3 per cent, while Kwik Save like-for-like sales were off just 3.2 per cent.

The pre-tax loss of £21.7m compares to a pre-tax profit of £60m for the corresponding period last year.

Somerfield said that the operating loss from ongoing activities in the first half was £13.4m.

Group turnover for the first half fell to £2.5bn, compared to £3bn in the corresponding period the year before, but the group pointed out that it had lost the contribution of 46 large Somerfield stores it sold last year.

These stores generated around £285m of turnover in the first half last year.

The Christmas reports from retailers continued to provide mixed news for the high street stores, with Safeway reporting a 7.7 per cent increase in total sales for the 12 weeks to January 6.

The strong performance according to Safeway reflected ''buoyant Christmas trading'', continued growth in customer numbers, and an increasing average spend from the group's existing customers.

Also posting good figures was department store group Debenhams which said it had seen ''record'' sales in the run-up to Christmas, with particularly strong sales of clothing and gifts.

Like-for-like sales jumped by 5.9 per in the 20 weeks to January 13, and it had kept its gross margin at last year's level.

Kingfisher's figures today showed that like-for-like sales, stripping out the effect of new store openings, jumped by 4.5% for the nine weeks to December 30.

On the downside Boots said overall sales had dipped, although core health and beauty products had risen, with chief executive Steve Russell saying the underlying performance of the group, for the 13 weeks to December 30, was in line with its expectations. Like-for-like sales for the whole group during the period fell 1.5 per cent