Morrisons has announced plans to open around 400 convenience stores across the UK as part of plans to take on Aldi and Lidl.

The supermarket is planning to open more of its Morrisons Daily convenience stores, aiming to increase its number of small stores to 2,000 in 2025.

It comes after Morrisons has posted another rise in sales over the latest quarter, a 4.1 per cent increase over the previous quarter.

However, the supermarket has not yet revealed a list of locations it is looking at, the Mirror reports.

Rami Baitieh, chief executive of Morrisons, praised the impact of its Aldi and Lidl Price Match initiative, which had gotten off to a “great start”.

He added: “I am pleased with the overall performance of the business in the second quarter with supermarkets, convenience, wholesale and online all delivering growth and contributing to a 4.1% increase in like-for-like sales.

“Over the last eight months we have listened carefully to over 340,000 customers, colleagues and suppliers and the insights from this exercise are helping to refine and shape the activity in all three pillars of our strategy: commercial excellence, operations optimisation and new value creation.

“It’s clear that availability and our loyalty scheme are the two areas our customers talk about the most and so we are focusing intensively on these areas.

“Our Aldi and Lidl Price Match, introduced in February, has had a great start and is giving customers increasing confidence in the competitiveness of our prices across the shop.”

Morrisons is currently celebrating its 125th birthday, and to mark the anniversary, it launched its biggest ever Basket Bonus scheme.

The birthday ‘Basket Bonus’ gives loyalty customers the chance to win points, earn bigger rewards and free products and have the chance to become a More Points Millionaire.

During the Morrisons birthday month, all More customers can scan their Morrisons More Card or app in store or online to see if they are in with a chance of a ‘Basket Bonus’.

This will include anything from free products to up to 5000 extra More Points being added to their More Card account.

Each week, 10 customers will also become a Morrisons More Points Millionaire, meaning they will claim a £1,000 bonus to spend in store or online just by scanning their card.

The 125th birthday ‘Basket Bonus’ will run until Sunday, July 14, and any customer can sign up to the app to be in with a chance of winning.

Kathryn Heap, Head of Loyalty at Morrisons, said: “Running our 125th Birthday ‘Basket Bonus’ is a way for us to show our appreciation for our loyal customers and allow them to celebrate this special occasion with us.

“We hope these birthday bonuses add a little extra joy and we can’t wait to make some customers More Card Millionaires this summer.”