Dunnes’ vouchers boost growth while Tesco remains at top

Only Lidl outperformed, with market leading growth in sales of 6.4%.

The latest supermarket share figures from Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland, published today for the 12 weeks ending 21 June, show a year-on-year growth in sales of 0.9% across the market. Dunnes demonstrated a strong performance, growing sales by 6.3% in the past 12 weeks to reach a market share of 22.2%, up from 21% in the same period last year. Only Lidl outperformed, with market leading growth in sales of 6.4%.

Cliona Lynch, Insight Manager at Kantar Worldpanel, explains: “Dunnes continued focus on its ‘Shop & Save’ voucher scheme is encouraging consumers to buy a bigger basket on each shop. The average Dunnes visitor is buying 18 items per trip compared with a market average of 13 – an increase of three items per basket on this time last year and an additional €5.00 through the tills on each shop.”

Tesco has retained its position as Ireland’s number one retailer with a 25.1% share of the market, despite a sales decline of 3.3%. While the volume of items bought has increased as shoppers take advantage of savings and stock up on goods, this has not been enough to compensate for a decrease in shopper numbers and average spend.

SuperValu sales grew just behind the market at 0.6% and share remained flat at 24.7%. Some 19,000 fewer shoppers visited the retailer than over the same period last year and those that remained were more frequent but lighter shoppers, visiting SuperValu more often but picking up fewer items on each trip.

In contrast to Ireland’s three largest retailers, Aldi and Lidl have continued to recruit shoppers to their stores and household penetration is now at 63.1% and 65.1% respectively – ahead of Dunnes’ 63%. However, the growth in shopper numbers at discounters is slowing. Aldi gained 28,000 new shoppers in the past 12 weeks compared with 80,000 this time last year, while Lidl picked up 6,000 – down from 53,000 in the 12 weeks to June 2014. Aldi has also seen growth in basket size slow, an area in which Lidl is outperforming.

Cliona Lynch continues: “As the discounters become more established in the market, year-on-year growth is harder to win. While both Aldi and Lidl are still seeing a strong performance and gains in market share, the landscape is becoming more competitive. The impact of Dunnes’ vouchering campaign has given it a strong boost this period. Elsewhere, SuperValu remains a steady challenger for the number one spot but Tesco’s plans to turn around performance could yet help it to regain growth and firmly re-establish its lead.”

Kantar Worldpanel has launched a new data visualisation tool that allows you to view and analyse Grocery Market Share data online. The latest sales share figures for all of the major grocers can be viewed and compared with historical figures here and all graphics within the Kantar Worldpanel dataviz are available to embed in your site. (Optimal viewing in recent versions of Internet Explorer or Chrome)

An update on inflation

The grocery market inflation stands at 0.6%* for the 12 week period ending 24th May 2015, up from 0.2% last period.

*This figure is based on over 30,000 identical products compared year-on-year in the proportions purchased by Irish 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.