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Asda consolidates position with further growth and share gains
Sales at grocery multiples grew 5.7% in the 4 weeks to 21st February as the grocery market continues to hold its ground in a tough trading environment according to latest figures from market research company, Nielsen.
All of the top 4 retailers have attracted new shoppers in the last quarter and in particular, Asda and Sainsbury. While Morrisons continues to grow sales ahead of its nearest competitors (+8.2%), this growth is being driven by increasing levels of spend from its shoppers, with the retailer now seeing the rate of gain of new sh
Asda continues to out-perform the market with 7.6% growth in the last 12 weeks, increasing to 8.2% in the 4 weeks to 21st February. This performance has been driven by four hundred thousand more shoppers visiting an Asda store in the last 12 weeks compared with the same period last year.
Mike Watkins, Senior Manager Retailer services at Nielsen commented:
“Asda has worked hard over the last year to develop their customer proposition and have attracted a wider base of shoppers. Asda's continuing growth has resulted in a good uplift verses last year and the retailer now holds 15.8% share of market. Shoppers are increasingly reassured about Asda's offering and the opportunity to save on shopping bills is proving alluring and pulling more people in.”
After a difficult period at the back end of 2008, Waitrose meanwhile, has once again moved into growth (+3.2%) in the latest 12 weeks driven by both increased numbers of shoppers visiting (+6%) and increased average spending each time shoppers are in store (+4.5%). While shopper numbers leveled out in the latest 4 weeks, amount spent per visit has continued to grow since Christmas with Waitrose customers currently spending 9% more each time they visit than they did a year ago. Watkins commented:
“Waitrose have re-energized their business in the last few weeks with some well chosen and focused price cuts and promotions. It is still early days but this suggests that a core of shoppers will respond to a message of saving money without necessarily having to change the products that they wish to buy.”
The discount retailers continue to suck up share from the major multiples. In the latest 12 weeks we see the Discounter share of trade increase to 6% compared to 5% this time last year and sales growths of +27% YOY.
“The continued momentum of the private label driven discounters shows that shoppers are happy to make the trade-off between range and price. The recent decision by Asda to further prune ranges by up to 30% in some categories may suggest that this retailer is looking to move into a middle ground between the limited range discounters and a full range retailer such as Tesco and this could prove to be a very shrewd strategy in the long term.” Added Watkins.
Tagged as: supermarkets
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