LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's biggest grocer Tesco (L:TSCO) saw its sales decline worsen over the last four weeks, industry data showed on Tuesday, hurt by the lowest market growth in a decade.
The data from market researcher Kantar Worldpanel showed Tesco's sales fell 3.8 percent year on year in the 12 weeks ending July 20, with its market share dipping to 28.9 percent from 30.3 percent.
The fall was worse than the 1.9 percent decline Kantar data showed for Tesco sales in the 12 weeks to June 22 last month.
Last week Tesco ditched Chief Executive Philip Clarke and issued its second profit warning in two years, saying sales in the first half of the year were "somewhat below expectations".
Overall market growth for the latest period fell to 0.9 percent - the lowest figure for 10 years, Kantar said, as British consumers shop around for cut price deals to save money and waste less by buying little and often in local convenience stores or online.
No. 4 player Morrisons (L:MRW), which like Tesco is undergoing a turnaround plan to improve its fortunes, also saw its sales fall by 3.8 percent in the 12 week period, with its market share down from 11.5 to 11 percent.
Tesco and Morrisons are also being particularly hurt by the rise of the German hard discounters Aldi [ALDIEI.UL] and Lidl [LIDUK.U], and have responded by cutting prices.
Sales at Aldi rose 32.2 percent in the period taking its market share to 4.8 percent, almost in line with more upmarket Waitrose [JLP.UL]. Lidl recorded sales growth of 19.5 percent and saw its market share rise from 3.1 percent to 3.6 percent.
Wal-Mart's (N:WMT) Asda and Sainsbury's (L:SBRY) both held onto their market share and recorded sales growth of 0.9 and 1.2 percent respectively.
Kantar said its measure of inflation fell to 0.4 percent - the lowest level in its dataset which began in October 2006.
(Reporting by Neil Maidment and James Davey; Editing by David Evans)