Big four supermarkets continue to lose market share
Latest figures on the grocery market have revealed that the big four supermarkets continued to lose market share over the past quarter in the face of competition from discounters.
Figures released by Kantar Worldpanel for the 12 weeks ending 30 March 2014, show that Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and Asda all saw falling sales in the quarter, with the declines accentuated by this year’s later Easter.
The data also reveals a market slowdown with growth of only 0.6%. Kantar estimates that Easter accounts for market growth of 0.9%. This means that a ‘corrected’ market growth would stand at 1.5%, although this is still low by historical standards.
Edward Garner, director at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “All of the ‘big four’ supermarkets have faced declining sales over the past 12 weeks, which has been accentuated by the late falling of Easter. Nevertheless, they have also seen worrying share declines, with the most resilient performance coming from Asda this period.”
Waitrose continued to hold on to its record 5% share reached last period, while The Co-operative appeared to stem its share losses by managing to hold its current 6.1% share seen in Kantar’s past four reports. Frozen food outlet Farmfoods also performed well, reaching a record share of 0.8%.
Meanwhile, discounter Aldi achieved its highest ever growth of 35.3%, boosting the retailer to a record market share of 4.6%. Lidl also experienced strong growth in a record breaking month, and now accounts for 3.4% of the market.
