By James Davey
LONDON (Reuters) - Sainsbury's (L:SBRY) was set to emerge as the winner among Britain's "big four" supermarkets over Christmas after being the only one to boost sales during the last three months, industry data showed on Tuesday.
Sainsbury's has shown greater resilience to the seemingly unstoppable rise of German discounters Aldi [ALDIEI.UL] and Lidl [LIDUK.UL] than its main rivals -- market leader Tesco (L:TSCO), Asda, owned by Wal-Mart (N:WMT), and Morrisons (L:MRW).
Of the "big four", only Sainsbury's recorded sales growth and a gain in market share over the 12 weeks to Dec. 6, researcher Kantar Worldpanel said, sending its shares up by as much as 5.2 percent.
Sainsbury's sales rose 1.2 percent, with its market share increasing to 16.7 percent, bucking subdued overall market conditions.
In contrast Tesco, which had a heavy programme of discount vouchers in the same period last year, saw its sales fall 3.4 percent, a deterioration on last month's reading of 2.5 percent.
Asda's sales also fell 3.4 percent, while Morrisons suffered a 2.0 percent decline.
"When we look at the Christmas numbers in four weeks time it is highly likely, unless something massive happens in the market place, that Sainsbury's will consider themselves to be pretty well pleased with their Christmas performance," said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel.
Aldi and Lidl, which enjoyed sales growth of 15.4 percent and 17.9 percent respectively over the 12 weeks to retain their 10 percent market share, would also be likely to emerge as winners over the festive season, he added.
All of the big four have seen sales, profits and asset values hit by a fierce price war that was launched to try to stem the loss of shoppers to the discounters and by the impact of commodity-led deflation.
Sainsbury's boss Mike Coupe told Reuters this month that Britain's big supermarkets may not yet have reached the low point in a crisis brought about by the rise of the discounters.
Kantar Worldpanel said Sainsbury's grew sales across its convenience, supermarket and online businesses over the 12 weeks.
Sainsbury's was tapping into demand for premium goods such as champagne and sparkling wine, said McKevitt.
He noted that the company was also benefiting from improved customer service and because it had lagged Tesco and Asda in providing higher margin non-food products, such as clothing, but was now catching up.
Having more stores in the south east of England, where the economy is performing more strongly than other parts of Britain, was also helping.
Kantar Worldpanel said overall market growth was just 0.1 percent, the lowest since June and the ninth consecutive month where sales have increased by less than 1 percent.
It said deflation was 1.9 percent, a deterioration from last month's 1.7 percent, reflecting the impact of Aldi and Lidl and the market's competitive response, as well as deflation in some major categories including eggs, butter, bread, crisps and fresh poultry.