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WH Smith suffered a miserable Christmas as like-for-like sales declined six per cent, the retailer has revealed.

The high street chain, which sells a mixture of stationery, books, CDs and DVDs, said it faced a "competitive market" during the seven weeks to January 20th. Its high street division sustained an eight per cent loss in that period and a nine per cent loss in the 20 weeks prior to the same date.

WH Smith maintained in its trading update this morning that its profit performance remained "in line with… expectations" and reflected the company's rebalancing strategy, however.

"In a competitive period on the high street, we continued to deliver our strategy to improve profitability. We increased the pace at which we are rebalancing the mix of our business towards our core categories," chief executive Kate Swann said.

Heavy price discounting over the Christmas period and the Bank of England's unexpected interest rate hike to 5.25 per cent earlier this month are making short-term prospects for Britain's shopkeepers very uncertain.

"Looking ahead, we remain cautious about consumer spending in our markets and our plans reflect this," Ms Swann added.

Shares in WH Smith rose by 2.81 per cent on early morning trading.