Department store John Lewis has upped its sales guidance after outperforming the market in its first quarter.

Retail director Andrew Murphy told Reuters: “We have revised our expectation upwards but candidly we haven’t revised our expectation of the market. Overall our like-for-like expectation was what I’d describe as cautiously positive and now I would describe it as more strongly positive.”

In John Lewis’ first quarter to April 28, group sales soared 12.2% which Murphy said equated to a like-for-like jump of about 7%.

Murphy told the newswire that he believes the economy is on course for a slow recovery, despite it plunging back into recession last month.

He also revealed that Jubilee merchandise was outselling those from last year’s Royal Wedding and Olympics merchandise sales were “well beyond” expectations.

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