Shares in Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer, fell 5% on Thursday to 201p, wiping almost €1bn (£860m) off the market value of the company.

The fall in Tesco’s share price came after the retailer announced third quarter sales figures that included the important Christmas period.

Tesco reported like-for-like sales growth in its UK and Irish business of 2.2% for the 19-week period to the 6 January.

In its UK stores, Tesco saw sales growth of 2.1% for the 19-week period, which is the eight consecutive quarter of sales growth for Tesco’s UK business.

Tesco said the growth in sales at its UK stores was driven by strong demand for food, which saw underlying sales growth of 3.4%.

In Ireland, sales growth was even stronger at 3.5% buoyed by strong consumer confidence in the Irish economy right now.

However, investors took a dim view of the results, which were below expectations.

Despite the weak sterling and rising price inflation in the UK economy, investors had expected a better performance from the retail giant.

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