UK supermarket Sainsbury's outperforms rivals at Christmas - Kantar

LONDON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - British supermarket Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's was the best performer of the industry's major players over the key Christmas trading period, data showed on Tuesday.

Market researcher Kantar Worldpanel said Sainsbury's total sales rose 0.8 percent in the 12 weeks to Jan. 3 year-on-year and its market share edged up 0.1 percentage point.

Market leader Tesco (Xetra: 852647 - news) , Wal-Mart's Asda and Morrisons all saw sales declines -- of 2.7 percent, 3.5 percent and 2.6 percent respectively -- and all lost market share to the fast growing discounters.

Discounters Aldi and Lidl saw sales growth of 13.3 percent and 18.5 percent respectively.

Kantar Worldpanel said sales in the overall market fell 0.2 percent, thanks to continuing price deflation of 1.8 percent. (Reporting by James Davey; editing by Kate Holton)