Sales rise but market share falls for Big Four grocers as Aldi and Lidl continue to grow
Each of the big four grocers has grown sales but seen a decrease in market share as Aldi and Lidl can now boast half the total market’s growth, new figures show.
Morrisons was the fastest growing of the large retailers, with sales up 2.8 per cent in the 12 weeks to 8 October, followed by Tesco, where sales grew by 2.1 per cent. Sainsbury’s and Asdagrew sales 1.9 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively.
This marks the 17th period of growth in a row for Britain’s grocers.
However all four have lost market share. The UK’s largest supermarket, Tesco, now commands 27.9 per cent of the total market, compared with 28.2 per cent last year. Sainsbury’s has slipped from 16 per cent to 15.8 per cent, Asda from 15.6 per cent to 15.4 per cent andMorrisons from 10.4 per cent to 10.3 per cent.
Meanwhile challengers Aldi and Lidl collectively added £390m to their sales this period – that’s half of the entire market’s overall growth for the period. Lidl remains Britain’s fastest growing supermarket, up by 16 per cent to account for 5.2 per cent of total supermarket spend, while Aldi grew by 13.4 per cent to 6.8 per cent.
However, Waitrose has nudged ahead of Lidl in terms of market share, after sales increased 2.3 per cent.
Kantar figures suggest that Christmas has already arrived, with shoppers spending £69m on chocolate confectionary boxes, £4m on mince pies and £1.1m on Christmas puddings in the past four weeks.
At Co-op, sales fell back by 2.5 per cent and market share fell to 6.2 per cent, a drop of 0.3 percentage points. Iceland’s sales grew by 2.6 per cent – making it the only bricks and mortar retailer other than Aldi and Lidl not to lose market share this period.