UK's 'big four' grocers lose more ground to discounters - Kantar

LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) - All of Britain's so-called "big four" supermarkets saw sales fall over the last 12 weeks in an overall market that grew marginally, with discounters continuing to take share from their bigger rivals, industry data showed on Tuesday.

Kantar Worldpanel said Asda, the British arm of U.S. retailer Wal-Mart, suffered the biggest sales fall over the 12 weeks to July 19 with a decline of 2.7 percent.

That meant Sainsbury's regained its No. 2 status with a market share of 16.5 percent compared with Asda's 16.4 percent, even though its sales fell 0.3 percent in the period.

Market leader Tesco (Xetra: 852647 - news) 's sales declined 0.6 percent, while No. 4 player Morrisons' fell 0.1 percent.

In contrast, discounters Aldi and Lidl posted sales growth of 16.6 percent and 11.3 percent respectively, taking their market shares up to 5.6 percent and 4.0 percent.

Overall grocery sales increased by 0.8 percent over the 12 weeks compared with a year ago, while grocery deflation was 1.6 percent.

(Reporting by James Davey)