Poundland has announced nearly £1bn in annual sales. Total sales for the year to 30th March rose 13.3% to £997m compared with £880.5m a year earlier.

The discount retailer has opened 70 new stores in the UK, taking its total number of retail outlets to 528.

Jim McCarthy, Poundland chief executive said that research conducted for the retailer suggested it may be able to open as many as 1400 stores across the country although they use 1,000 internally as “It's a nice round number”.

He added that he was unconcerned about the firm's growth prospects as the economy recovered, saying that although it seemed counter intuitive, "Poundland and other discount retailers do better as consumer confidence improves."

Andrew Higginson, chairman of Poundland, said: "I expect that Poundland will continue to benefit from its strong trading platform, its universal appeal and the structural change in consumers' shopping behaviour".

Poundland’s like-for-like sales, which do not count the sales made at stores that have been open less than a year, were 1.9% higher. That compared with a 1.7% fall in like-for-like sales a year earlier.