Supermarket giant Tesco is struggling with its market share, performing behind its 2008 figures despite a pick-up in the last month.
Tesco's growth has improved slightly since April to 4.7 per cent but as this is behind the market its share fell to 30.8 per cent (compared to 31.1 per cent last year).
The grocery sector as a whole suffered a dip in growth due to lower grocery inflation but is still progressing strongly despite a slowdown in growth rate.
The latest TNS Worldpanel grocery market share figures, published for the 12 weeks ending May 17, show the sector growing strongly at 5.8 per cent. While growth has slowed down compared to the April figure of 6.2 per cent, it still represents robust growth, with the fall being attributable to lower grocery inflation.
Among the big four retailers, Morrisons leads the way with annual growth of 7.9 per cent, taking its share up to 11.6 per cent (compared to 11.4 per cent last year). Sainsbury’s with 7.8 per cent growth and Asda with 7.2 per cent growth follow closely behind, increasing their market shares to 16.3 per cent and 17.1 per cent respectively.
Peter East, director of TNS Worldpanel, said: “Waitrose is showing signs of combating recessionary pressures with growth increasing to four per cent, still slower than the market but an encouraging indication that customers are confident enough to shop at a premium retailer. Waitrose will be looking at its increased sales growth as an early vindication of its ‘Essentials’ range strategy.
“The discount retailers (Aldi, Netto and Lidl) have taken their combined market share up to 6.1 per cent (compared to 5.9 per cent last year) but it is worth noting that their combined growth rate of 9.4 per cent has slowed and is no longer running at twice that of the big four retailers.”
Grocery price inflation has decreased since last month and the figure for the 12-week period ending May 17 is 8.1 per cent.
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