Morrison, Waitrose get lift from new stores-data

LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - British food retailers Wm
Morrison Supermarkets (MRW.L) and Waitrose [JLP.UL] are
outperforming competitors thanks to new store openings as
falling food price inflation slows sales growth for the nation's
grocers, industry data showed on Tuesday.

Market researcher Nielsen said sales at grocery multiples
rose 4.2 percent year-on-year in the four weeks to Oct. 31, the
slowest rate since the summer of 2007.

Morrison, Britain's fourth-biggest supermarket group, saw
sales rising 9 percent over the period, which could ease fears
that its recent run of strong growth was coming to an end, while
sales at upmarket rival Waitrose were up 12.3 percent.

"Waitrose and Morrisons are currently outperforming other
retailers and it's no coincidence that they are the two
retailers to benefit most from acquisitions this year," said
Mike Watkins, senior manager retailer services at Nielsen.

Over the 12 weeks to Oct. 31, Morrison and Waitrose saw
sales growth of 8.4 percent and 11.7 percent respectively.

At the same time Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, saw
growth of 5.6 percent, behind closest rival Asda (WMT.N) with
6.1 percent but ahead of industry number three J Sainsbury
(SBRY.L) with 4.7 percent.

Sainsbury is due to report interim results on Wednesday and
Asda its third-quarter sales on Thursday. [ID:nL66220]

Following is a summary of Nielsen's findings for the 12
weeks to Oct. 31:

% Share of total grocery

market spend

12 wks to 12 wks to Value sales

31/10/09 01/11/08 pct change y/y
Tesco 28.2 28.0 5.6
Asda 15.8 15.6 6.1
Sainsbury 14.2 14.2 4.7
Morrison 10.7 10.3 8.4
Co-Op 8.4 9.5 -7.7
Waitrose 3.5 3.3 11.7
M&S 3.6 3.6 2.8
Iceland 1.8 1.8 6.6
(Reporting by Mark Potter; Editing by Greg Mahlich)