Asda fares worst in rush to discounters

Published on Monday 20 June 2011 22:16

Asda has been hardest hit among the big four supermarket retailers by shoppers cutting back and spending more in no-frills supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl, new research suggests.

The Wal-Mart owned supermarket, which yesterday announced Simon King, its deputy chief executive, had stepped down with immediate effect, saw its share of the UK grocery market drop from 16.7 per cent to 16.3 per cent in the 12 weeks to 13 June, according to data from Kantar Worldpanel.

King only joined Asda in January, having previously been head of a number of Tesco divisions and Panda Retail, the largest supermarket chain in Saudi Arabia.

Asda has lost out to a growing trend for people to do more of their basic shopping at discounters, Kantar director Edward Garner said.

The group's market share is now only a fraction ahead of Sainsbury's, which held its share steady at 16.2 per cent, as the number two retailer behind Tesco, with 30.9 per cent, a position Asda has held almost continuously since 2004. Morrisons has 12 per cent.

Kantar said grocery sales rose 2.5 per cent year-on-year in the four weeks to 12 June, compared with 4.7 per cent growth for the 12 weeks ending on the same date.

Privately-owned German discount chains Aldi and Lidl saw sales leap 18 per cent over the 12 week period to achieve record market shares of 3.4 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively.

Kantar said the discounters were attracting some new customers, although most of their growth was coming from winning more business with existing shoppers.

It also noted that shoppers were still keen to treat themselves, with strong sales growth for upmarket grocer Waitrose and for Tesco's premium "Finest" range.

Grocery price inflation ticked up to 4.6 per cent from 4.4 per cent in the 12 week figures reported last month, Kantar said.

Overall, total grocery sales rose by 4.7 per cent, with the run-up to the royal wedding seeing growth of 7.8 per cent, but which dropped to 2.5 per cent in the four weeks following.