NEWCASTLE United owner Mike Ashley's Sports Direct business has delivered sales figures to match his football team's better-than-expected start to the Premier League.

The company, which has 390 stores and owns brands including Slazenger, Dunlop and Karrimor, impressed City analysts by revealing a 12.1% increase in retail store sales to £296m for the nine weeks to September 25.

This bettered forecasts of around 7% as Sports Direct continued to benefit from the impact of its bonus scheme, which has helped incentivise staff in recent years.

Ashley, whose team is currently fourth in the Premier League, is the majority owner of Sports Direct.

Retail profits also beat expectations at £119m, up by 13.3%, as margins improved and Sports Direct took market share from rivals.

The sportswear retailer said it is confident of reaching its target for underlying profits of £215m in the year to April.

That is a critical benchmark for the staff bonus scheme that last year paid out more than £40,000 on average to some 2,000 staff.

A new bonus scheme was introduced earlier this year that runs for four years and requires targets to be hit in each year.

Chief executive Dave Forsey praised the employee scheme, which he said had underpinned the strong sales performance over the past two months, while increased spending on marketing and other initiatives such as better quality stock had also given a boost.

The group does not give like-for- like comparisons at this stage, but analysts estimated retail sales grew by 3% on a same store performance after stripping out a very strong online performance.

Sports Direct said total sales increased by 11.5% to £329m over the nine weeks, with gross profit up by 12% to £131 million.

Forsey added the group was optimistic about the opportunities in 2012, which contains the Olympics and UEFA Euro 2012 football competition.