Tesco top in UK Christmas trading battle

LONDON, Jan 9 (Reuters): Britain's biggest supermarket group Tesco was the best performer over Christmas, Kantar Worldpanel said on Tuesday, with a 3.1 per cent rise in sales in the past 12 weeks beating its "big four" rivals Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons.

Asda, owned by Walmart, increased sales by 2.2 per cent in the period to Dec. 31, while 2.1 per cent more came through the tills at Morrisons and Sainsbury's was up 2.0 per cent, the research group said.

But growth at Aldi and Lidl continued to outpace the four, with both discounters seeing sales rise by 16.8 per cent.

"Overall supermarket sales increased in value by 3.8 per cent, with an additional 1 billion pounds ($1.35 billion)ringing through the tills compared to the same festive period last year," said Fraser McKevitt, Kantar Worldpanel's head of retail and consumer insight.