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‘Big Four’ continue to lose market share to Aldi and Lidl

Published: 20:15 16 Oct 2018 AEDT

lidl trolley
Overall, UK supermarket sales grew 3.2% in the quarter

German discounters Aldi and Lidl have taken yet more market share away from the ‘Big Four’ supermarkets over the past three months, according to the latest Kantar Worldpanel data.

In the 12 weeks to October 7, Aldi saw sales surge 15% compared to the same period last year, while Lidl sales grew by 10%.

READ: Sainsbury’s weakest in summer Kantar data

Aldi’s market share increased by 0.8 percentage points (ppt) in the period to 7.6%, while Lidl edged up to 5.6%.

With sales up 7% year-on-year, Co-op was the only other bricks-and-mortar grocer to gain market share.

Sainsbury’s posts weakest sales growth (again)

As for the traditional ‘Big Four’, J Sainsbury plc (LON:SBRY) was the worst performer in terms of sales, which rose by just 0.6% in the quarter, resulting in a 0.4ppt dip in its market share to 15.4%.

It was Tesco PLC’s (LON:TSCO) slice of the market which took the biggest beating though, down 0.6ppt to 27.4%, despite a 0.9% rise in sales.

WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC (LON:MRW) and Asda were tied for the top spot among the majors, with both growing sales by 2.4%. Still, the pair also gave up some of their market share to the discounters.

Asda is still the UK’s third-biggest supermarket with a 15.3% share of the market, while Morrisons remains in fourth on 10.3%.

Overall supermarket sales were up 3.2% compared to the same period last year, with these results still getting a boost from the end of summer.

Autumn cool-off not unusual

Still, that rate of growth is not quite as fast as it had been during the main summer months, but Kantar’s head of retail and consumer insight, Fraser McKevitt, said it is “very respectable” nonetheless.

 “Consumer spending often slows in early autumn, after the excesses of summer barbeques and before the festive season kicks off,” said McKevitt.

“The arrival of colder weather and darker evenings has inspired consumers to embrace hearty comfort foods and stock up on Sunday roast staples; shoppers spent £51mln on whole chickens, £62mln on roasting joints and £4mln on Yorkshire puddings in September alone.”

He added: “Christmas will be here before we know it [though] and some families seem to be getting into the spirit already – 8% of households bought mince pies last month, spending a total of £4mln with 70 days still to go before the big day.”

Grocery inflation at 2%

As for grocery inflation, that rose to 2.0% in the 12-week period. Inflation has been rising since the beginning of 2017 following two-and-a-half years of deflation.

Prices rising the fastest at the moment are butter, cola and sparkling wine.

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