Grocery Market Share UK - ASDA at an all-time high

The latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, published today for the 12 weeks ending 18 March 2012, show the market growing at 4.0%. This remains below the 5.5% grocery inflation rate meaning shoppers are having to take advantage of the current crop of special offers and make selective purchases to manage down their ‘personal’ inflation.

Edward Garner, director at Kantar Worldpanel, comments: “The findings make particularly good reading for Asda. Its 17.9% share is an all-time record performance and its year-on-year growth rate of 7.8% is leading the big four, largely thanks to the full integration of its Netto stores.

“Elsewhere, Tesco’s growth rate of 2.7% still lags behind the market and results in a drop in share. However, it is an improvement on the growth rates seen so far this year. Both Sainsbury’s and Morrisons’ shares remain unchanged from the same period last year.”

Waitrose, Aldi* and Lidl continue to out-perform the market, particularly so in the case of Aldi with year-on-year growth of 28.5%.

Edward adds: “The frozen food market remains buoyant and this has helped Iceland to enjoy 10.2% growth – good news for the new consortium owning the chain.”

*Please see the notes to editors below for details on changes to Kantar Worldpanel’s sample affecting Aldi’s share

An update on inflation

Grocery inflation stands at 5.5%* for the 12 week period ending 18 March 2012. This is unchanged from the previous report. This remains above the market growth of 4.0% this period and means that households are still trying to rein in grocery spending by managing down their ‘personal inflation’