UK's Sainsbury's outperforms rivals - Kantar Worldpanel

LONDON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - British supermarket Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's outperformed its so called "big four" rivals over the last three months, industry data showed on Tuesday, as a price war continues to stall overall market growth.

Market researcher Kantar Worldpanel said Sainsbury's sales grew 0.9 percent in the 12 weeks to Sept. 13, while sales at market leader Tesco (Xetra: 852647 - news) , 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 slipped at the other three.

German discounters 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 had shopped at one of the two firms in the period.

Overall market growth for the 12 weeks was 0.9 percent, the sixth straight month that sales have grown by less than 1 percent. (Reporting by James Davey; editing by Neil Maidment)