Grocery Market Share UK - Tesco gains shoppers but takes less cash at the tills

The latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, published today for the 12 weeks ending 27 November 2011, show the grocery market growing at 4.2% per year. This remains below the 6.2% inflation rate as shoppers continue to feel the pressure on their purse strings.

Tesco is the only retailer among the big four to see its share slip - from 30.7% a year ago to 30.5% - and its growth rate of 3.8% has also fallen behind that of the market.

Edward Garner, Director at Kantar Worldpanel explains: “This may at first seem disappointing for Tesco given the ‘Big Price Drop’ initiative; however, it is not wholly unexpected. With more products available for less, the amount of cash taken at the tills has understandably dropped. Despite this, Tesco has successfully attracted more shoppers to its stores through the promotion. This strategy, coined ‘self imposed deflation’ by Tesco, is something we have seen in the past and it’s clear that Tesco is using this method again to help shoppers save their pennies.”

Morrisons continues its positive run, seeing year-on-year share uplift from 12.0% to 12.1%. Asda has also posted its strongest growth since December 2009 as the integration of the UK Netto stores is completed.

Edward adds: “Aldi and Lidl continue to enjoy strong growth helped by some discount shoppers migrating from Netto. However, this growth is below the record levels seen earlier this year and the total hard discount sector has slipped back to 6.0% from 6.2% a year ago.

“Waitrose seems to be immune from economic gloom with prospects of a record Christmas likely, as a result of its traditional seasonal uplift.”

The frozen food revival continues to buoy up Iceland’s performance with year-on-year growth of 11%.

An update on inflation

Grocery inflation stands at 6.2%* for the 12 week period ending 27 November 2011. This is a marginal increase on the 6.1% reported last period and continues the rising trend we have seen throughout 2011. However, it is our view that it has now peaked and will decline going into 2012.

*This figure is based on over 75,000 identical products compared year-on-year in the proportions purchased by British shoppers and therefore represents the most authoritative figure currently available. It is a ‘pure’ inflation measure in that shopping behaviour is held constant between the two comparison periods – shoppers are likely to achieve a lower personal inflation rate if they trade down or seek out more offers