Retail competition is intensifying and even Tesco is feeling the heat, with sales growth the lowest in several years according to TNS Worldpanel.
Both Sainsbury’s and Asda continue to battle for the second spot, but both seem to have stalled with market share for the 12 weeks to February 26 the same as the last period at 16.6 per cent for Asda, and 16.2 per cent for Sainsbury.
Despite this however, some analysts are claiming Sainsbury’s is poised to strike ahead of Asda, with their figures putting the two level at 16.1 per cent share each.
Tesco continues to stay well ahead of the field, said TNS, with a market share of 30.4 per cent, compared with 29.1 per cent for the same period last year. However its growth has slowed to a rate of eight per cent, the lowest seen for several years.
Edward Garner, director of research at TNS, said: “Asda’s year-on-year growth rate has edged up to three per cent from the lows seen in the middle of last year. This is still behind the average for total grocers but is evidence of the fierce strength of competition in the UK grocery market.
“Morrisons recent stability continues and, in fact, the share edges up to 11.2 per cent from 11.1 per cent seen in the last report.
“Last month Somerfield announced that the Kwik Save chain was being broken up with 171 stores being sold to BTTF and the remainder being either rebranded as Somerfield or sold off. This means that the Kwik Save share, which stands at a low of 1.5% will see further sharp declines,” he added.
