Sainsbury's outperforms rivals - Kantar Worldpanel
LONDON (Reuters) - British supermarket Sainsbury's outperformed its so called "big four" rivals over the last three months, industry data showed on Tuesday, as a grocery price war continued to stall overall market growth.
Sainsbury's, in common with its major peers -- market leader Tesco, Wal-Mart's Asda and Morrisons -- is battling to reverse the flow of shoppers to German discounters Aldi [ALDIEI.UL] and Lidl [LIDUK.UL] through price cuts, as well as product quality and service improvements.
Market researcher Kantar Worldpanel said Sainsbury's sales grew 0.9 percent in the 12 weeks to Sept. 13, while sales at Tesco, Asda and Morrisons fell 1.0 percent, 2.9 percent and 1.4 percent respectively.
Sainsbury's maintained its market share at 16.2 percent while it edged down at the other three.
The data represents a boost to Sainsbury's ahead of a second quarter trading statement scheduled for Sept. 30. Its shares were up 1 percent by 0914 GMT, while shares in Tesco and Morrisons were both down 1 percent.
Kantar said Sainsbury's attracted 250,000 new shoppers over the 12 week period, helped by the expansion of its convenience store outlets.
Aldi and Lidl continued their strong performances at the expense of the traditional players with sales rises of 17.3 percent and 16.0 percent respectively. Kantar said some 56 percent of British households shopped at one of the two grocers in the period.
Lidl's market share hit a record high of 4.2 percent, while Aldi's increased to 5.6 percent.
Overall market growth for the 12 weeks was 0.9 percent, the sixth straight month that sales have grown by less than 1 percent.
Kantar said deflation was 1.7 percent over the period.
Falling prices reflect the impact of Aldi and Lidl and the market's competitive response, as well as deflation in some major categories including eggs, bread, butter and crisps.
(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Neil Maidment)
