Like for like sales fell by 4.9 per cent, but toys and Chad Valley in particular performed well.
Chief executive Terry Duddy, Home Retail’s chief executive, said its own Chad Valley toy brand was its star performer.
More than six million products were sold over Christmas, he said, a year-on-year increase of 150 per cent.
Total sales at Argos declined by 3.2 per cent to £1.8bn. Net new space contributed 1.7 per cent; six new stores opened and one closed in the quarter, taking the portfolio to 754; two stores were relocated.
Like-for-like sales declined by 4.9 per cent in the period. In difficult markets, video games continued to be the most challenging category, down from a strong previous year, and televisions were down against last year’s good performance.
The jewellery category was also weak. There was an excellent performance in laptops and tablets, as well as further good growth in white goods and toys.
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The internet represented over £700m or 38 per cent of Argos sales, up from 35 per cent a year earlier; online reservations accounted for over three-quarters of these sales.
The Argos app has now been downloaded 1.2 million times and was used to place almost a million reservations in the period.
