Tesco rings up £2.85bn profits

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Britain's biggest supermarket said pre-tax profits were up 11.8% on the year before.

UK sales increased by 3.5% on a like-for-like basis, excluding petrol, in the year to February 23 as Tesco said it coped with a particularly tough second half.

The group has been under increasing pressure from competitors Morrisons and Asda as the supermarkets gain market share.

Tesco, which has around 30% of the UK grocery market, said the past year had been "unusual", with belt tightening among hard-pressed consumers also seeing subdued sales of some non-food products in the final six months.

But current year trading is proving resilient, with domestic sales up by more than 4% on a comparative basis, excluding petrol, in the first five weeks, according to Tesco.

Meanwhile, Tesco is to take on Apple iTunes with the launch of a new music and film digital download service.

Tesco Digital will initially offer 3.3 million music tracks when it launches next month, 1.6 million of those in MP3 format.

It plans for all of the site's music to be compatible with iPods and other MP3 players by the end of the year. The site will later expand to offer downloadable films, TV shows and computer games.

The chain launched Tesco.com in 2000, and became the first major British supermarket to enter the music download market in 2004. However the service is currently only available in Windows Media format.