Asda's sales slump again as owner Wal-Mart struggles in UK

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LONDON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Asda, the British supermarket arm of U.S. giant Wal-Mart, reported another sharp drop in quarterly underlying sales on Thursday, highlighting the pressure on its new boss to turn around the sector laggard.

Asda said underlying sales, excluding fuel, fell 5.8 percent in the three months to end September, an improvement on the record 7.5 percent drop recorded in the previous period but still the ninth straight quarter of decline.

Asda, Britain's third biggest supermarket behind Tesco , Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's and ahead of Morrisons, has been hit by the advance of German discounters Aldi and Lidl.

While the other three traditional groups have upped their game in recent years and started to fight back, Asda is still struggling to adapt and win back customers in the fiercely competitive sector.

Asda's UK market share has slipped a full 1 percentage point over the last year to 15.5 percent.

The task of steadying the ship falls to Sean Clarke, the former boss of Wal-Mart's China business who took over the top job in July.

"We have lowered thousands of prices, improved hundreds of own brand products and invested in more hours for colleagues on the shop floor - so it's encouraging to see more customers shopping with us in stores and online," Clarke (Toronto: CKI.TO - news) said.

(Reporting by Kate Holton, Editing by Paul Sandle)