Grocery Market Share UK - Strong performances

The latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, published today for the 12 weeks ending 2 February 2014, show increased market share for Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and the discounters despite the overall grocery market growing at its slowest rate since 2005.

Fraser McKevitt, retail analyst at Kantar Worldpanel, explains: “Grocery market growth slipped slightly to 2.4%, indicating that brighter economic prospects are yet to be seen in the nation’s shopping trolleys. The slowest industry growth since 2005 made it hard for many of the biggest retailers to increase sales. However, shoppers felt the benefit as grocery inflation fell to only 2.1%.”

Asda managed to grow, with sales up 0.5% compared with a year ago, but lost share after failing to match the 2.4% market growth. Tesco and Morrison also lost market share as a result of declining sales. As the UK’s biggest retailer, Tesco unsurprisingly reflected the slow overall market with sales down by 0.4% compared with the same period last year.

Fraser continues: “Mike Coupe, who will be taking over from Sainsbury’s current CEO Justin King in July, will be inheriting the retailer in good shape as it continues to be the fastest growing of the big four – an unbroken run that stretches back nearly two years according to our reporting. Year-on-year growth of 2.7% was enough to boost Sainsbury’s market share to 17.1% from 17.0% a year ago.

“Double digit growth helped Aldi and Lidl to gain market share, as shopper habits evolve from using the so called ‘discounters’ to pick up a few items in between shops to them being considered an acceptable place for the weekly shopping trip. Aldi and Lidl together now account for 7.3% of sales, up 1.3% percentage points from last year. Waitrose sales were up 5.6% compared with a year ago and this helped it to grow its share of the market to 4.9%.”

An update on inflation
Grocery inflation stands at 2.1%* for the 12 week period ending 2 February 2014. This is at the lowest level since July 2010 and offers a small respite for hard-pressed household budgets.

*This figure is based on over 75,000 identical products compared year-on-year in the proportions purchased by 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.