The latest TNS Worldpanel grocery market share figures, published today for the 12 weeks ending April 22, show that the grocery sector continues to strengthen, with year-on-year growth of six per cent.
The top three supermarket chains are all posting strong growth to lift their combined share by 1.5 percentage points compared with a year ago. In particular, the growth rates seen for Asda and Sainsbury’s are the highest for at least three years.
In the case of Morrisons, whilst the annual growth rate is lower, at five per cent, it is at a record level since bringing Safeway into the fold. “This marks a welcome change from the alarming negatives seen throughout 2005,” said Ed garner, director of research, TNS Worldpanel.
“From now on, these levels of growth are going to prove challenging to maintain as the sharp decline of the Kwik Save business begins to drop out of the annual comparisons,” he added. “In particular, Aldi and Lidl will have to strive to keep up their current strong run as the one-off gain of shoppers (and shops) from Kwik Save becomes history.”
Elsewhere the pressure remains on Somerfield, after a share drop of 0.4 per cent in the last 12 months.
• TNS Worldpanel monitors the household grocery purchasing habits of 25,000 demographically representative households in Great Britain. All data is based on the value of items being bought by these consumers,
