Promotions such as its `dine in for £10' offer helped the drop in like-for-like food sales ease to 3.7 per cent in the 13 weeks to March 28, from a decline of 8.9 per cent the previous quarter.
General merchandise also put in a better performance, down 4.8 per cent in the three months. Sir Stuart Rose, M&S executive chairman, said customers were `responding positively' to actions taken to revive flagging sales.
Shares opened 10 per cent higher after the figures beat expectations for a decline in like-for-like sales of as much as seven per cent.
And M&S stressed sales were also impacted by the timing of this year's later Easter and would have been 0.7 per cent better with that taken into account.
Sir Stuart said M&S was attracting younger customers, with nearly 250,000 more customers under the age of 35 in the fourth quarter.
Young mums in particular were helping boost sales of children's clothing, while womenswear was also selling well, thanks in part to the launch of the new Portfolio range.
The M&S boss said steps taken to resolve some `self-inflicted injuries' were helping halt the plunge in sales, which left it nursing a 7.1 per cent fall in the previous quarter in the worst trading for almost a decade.
It was also forced to axe 1,200 jobs and shut 25 Simply Food outlets and two main stores. Sir Stuart said the redundancies and store closures were `all behind us', but warned high street conditions were yet to see a turnaround.
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