SUPERMARKET chain Wm Morrison is to launch online grocery shopping for customers in large swathes of England but has declined to confirm whether it will extend the service to Scotland, where it already punches above its weight as the market number three.

Morrisons, which is the fourth largest grocer UK-wide, ceded further ground to its rivals in its latest quarter to November 3, reporting a worse than expected 2.4% fall in like-for-like sales.

The company said it still expected underlying sales to grow over Christmas, driven by promotional deals on the likes of Quality Street chocolates and Baileys liqueur.

The lack of an online grocery service has denied Morrisons access to a rare growth area in an otherwise cut-throat grocery sector. It has reported that some of its cash-strapped shoppers have turned to delivery services operated by other groups to save on transport costs.

Morrisons, headed by Dalton Philips, is to start food deliveries in Warkwickshire in the English Midlands in January. An extension to its home county of Yorkshire will follow.

By the end of 2014, it intends to be delivering to 50% of UK households, including London. But a spokesman declined to say whether Scotland, where the Safeway acquisition gave it a strong presence, would receive the service.