Ireland household budget fears lead to market slowdown

The latest supermarket share figures from Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland show a slowdown in grocery market growth

The latest supermarket share figures from Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland, published today for the 12 weeks ending 13 October, show a slowdown in grocery market growth in the run up to the budget announcement. Sales growth for the total market stood at 0.6%―its lowest level since June, as consumers tried to manage their spending by shopping less often.

David Berry, commercial director at Kantar Worldpanel, explains: “Many of the grocery retailers have been actively targeting shoppers with money saving vouchers in recent months and this has led to a change in consumer shopping habits. Shoppers have switched from the ‘little and often’ approach to stocking up, making fewer trips, but purchasing more items per shop.”

Among the retailers, Dunnes’ ‘Shop and Save’ campaign has helped to drive sales growth of 5%, and boosted its market share by 1 percentage point to 23%. Aldi and Lidl both continue to post impressive growth rates of 23% and 10.3% respectively, although their combined market share of 14.5% has dipped further below the record level of 15.1% achieved in August. SuperValu’s sales remain in line with last year’s performance with a slight dip in share, while sales at Superquinn have fallen by 1.8%.

David continues: “Tesco continues to feel the pressure, with sales declining by 6.5% and its market share dropping from 28.6% last year to 26.6% now. This is the twelfth successive quarter of decline for Tesco, which has lost significant market share to the discounters over the course of the year. Its ‘Tesco Price Promise’ campaign is clearly aimed at challenging the view that Aldi and Lidl are cheaper, and it will be interesting to see the response from shoppers over the coming months.”

An update on inflation

Grocery inflation stands at 4.2%* for the 12 week period ending 13 October 2013, down from the 4.8% seen 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.