The latest TNS Worldpanel grocery market share figures, published yesterday afternoon for the 12 weeks ending July 13, 2008 reveal that the rise of the discounters is gathering pace.
Discounters now account for a 5.9 per cent share of grocery spending, higher than ever before reported, and they are also the fastest-growing sector of the market. Chris Longbottom, director of TNS Worldpanel, said: “The total grocery market continues to grow strongly (+7 per cent year-on-year), fuelled partly by food price inflation and also by better performance for supermarkets than other retail outlets.
“While the Discounters’ share in the UK has reached a new record, this level is still modest compared to the share they enjoy on the Continent (11 per cent in France and 38 per cent in Germany according to Europanel). Aldi and Lidl’s year-on-year growth stood at 20 per cent and 14 per cent respectively, reflecting their success in attracting more spend from hard-pressed shoppers, even though the majority of them still do most of their grocery shopping at the major supermarket chains.”
Among the top four, both Asda and Morrisons enjoyed nine per cent growth, ahead of the market and yielding higher shares than last year. Tesco’s growth of seven per cent and Sainsbury’s of six per cent were still creditable but slightly behind the overall market resulting in small share erosion.
Despite utterances to the contrary from within retail corridors, Longbottom said such performance is “indicative of the overall buoyancy but intense competition within the grocery sector in the current economic climate”.
TNS Worldpanel also released an update on price inflation in grocery, which had increased to 5.8 per cent for the 12 weeks ending June 15. This average masks a range of products and is based on 78,000 identical products compared year-on-year and therefore represents the most authoritative figure currently available.
