Tesco triumphs in Christmas trading battle - Kantar Worldpanel

LONDON, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Britain's biggest supermarket group Tesco (Frankfurt: 852647 - news) was the best performer over Christmas, Kantar Worldpanel said on Tuesday, with a 3.1 percent rise in sales in the past 12 weeks beating its "big four" rivals Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's, Asda and Morrisons.

Asda, owned by Walmart, grew sales by 2.2 percent in the period to Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) 31, while 2.1 percent more came through the tills at Morrisons and Sainsbury's was up 2.0 percent, the research group said.

Growth at Aldi and Lidl, however, continued to outpace the four, with both discounters seeing sales rise by 16.8 percent.

Grocery inflation stood at 3.7 percent for the period, Kantar said.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Kate Holton)