Growth Continues for Irish Grocery Market

The latest supermarket share figures show a positive picture for the Irish grocery market with sales up by 1.2%.

The latest supermarket share figures from Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland, published today for the 12 weeks ending 1 February, show a positive picture for the Irish grocery market with sales up by 1.2%. This follows a strong performance at Christmas and means that the market is now in its 11th consecutive period of growth.

Georgieann Harrington, Consumer Insight Director at Kantar Worldpanel, explains: “There are clear signs that the grocery market is improving along with the overall economy. Shoppers are taking advantage of lower grocery prices by visiting the supermarkets more often and putting more in their baskets when they go. On average, consumers increased their grocery spending by €5 in the latest period.”

While growing, the retail landscape remains challenging as retailers compete fiercely to hold on to shoppers post-Christmas. Tesco has maintained its market-leading position with 25.2% market share although its sales have fallen by 2.1% compared to this time last year. SuperValu is continuing to grow and now has 24.9% market share, only 0.3 percentage points behind Tesco. Dunnes was the best performing supermarket with sales growth of 1.7%, the strongest performance for the retailer since July 2014. Dunnes has seen its basket spend increase by 3% to just over €35.

Elsewhere in the market, Lidl and Aldi have continued their strong performance with double digit sales growth of 12.5% and 11.5% respectively. Both retailers continue to increase footfall with over 60% of Irish households shopping in each retailer in the past 12 weeks. Lidl has seen shoppers visit its stores more often while Aldi has continued to increase the amount shoppers spend on each visit.

Georgieann Harrington comments: “With signs of recovery in the market, it’s great to see the positive trend continue after the key Christmas period. The battle for shoppers will continue well into 2015 and this will create more value for Irish households as retailers go head to head.”

New Grocery Market Share dataviz

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 http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/en/grocery-market-share/ 

All graphics within the Kantar Worldpanel dataviz are available to embed in your site.