UK's Sainsbury's falls behind rivals with dip in sales - Kantar Worldpanel

(Adds detail, table, shares)

LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - Sales at Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's,

Britain's second biggest supermarket group, dipped in the last

12 weeks, while its main rivals all saw increases, industry data

showed on Tuesday.

Sainsbury's sales were down 0.2 percent in the 12 weeks to

June 17 and its market share fell 0.4 percentage points to 15.6

percent, researcher Kantar Worldpanel said.

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in the group, which in April agreed to buy No. 3

player Asda for 7.3 billion pounds ($9.7 billion), were down 1.8

percent at 0814 GMT.

Sainsbury's is due to publish a first quarter trading update

on July 4.

In contrast, sales at Asda, the British arm of Walmart

, rose 1.8 percent. They were up 1.4 percent at market

leader Tesco (Frankfurt: 852647 - news) and up 1.9 percent at No. 4 Morrisons

.

However, all three continued to lose market share to

discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Aldi's sales rose 8.2 percent and Lidl's were up 10.0

percent, giving market shares of 7.4 percent and 5.4 percent

respectively.

Overall, UK grocery sales rose 2.1 percent in the period,

reflecting strong sales of spirits, soft drinks and hay fever

remedies.

Kantar Worldpanel said grocery inflation was 1.9 percent,

with prices rising fastest in markets such as butter, colas and

canned fish.

UK grocers market share (percent) and sales growth

12 wks to 12 wks to pct change

June 17 2018 June 18 2017 in sales

Tesco 27.7 27.9 1.4

Sainsbury's 15.6 16.0 -0.2

Asda 15.1 15.2 1.8

Morrisons 10.6 10.7 1.9

Aldi 7.4 6.9 8.2

Cooperative 6.2 6.1 2.4

Lidl 5.4 5.0 10.0

Waitrose 5.1 5.2 0.1

Iceland 2.2 2.2 2.5

Ocado 1.2 1.1 10.1

Source: Kantar Worldpanel

($1 = 0.7531 pounds)

(Reporting by James Davey, Editing by Paul Sandle and Mark

Potter)