By Ian Walker
LONDON--The combined market shares of German retailers Aldi and
Lidl rose to a record 8.6% in the latest 12 week data according to
a survey Tuesday, with Aldi recording the fastest growing sales of
any retailer at 22.3%, followed closely by Lidl with 18.3% sales
growth.
Up-market retailer Waitrose, also continued to gain market
share, extending an unbroken pattern of growth dating back to
February 2009, according to Kantar, which monitors the household
grocery purchasing habits of 25,000 demographically representative
households in the U.K.
In the 12 weeks ended Dec. 7, Waitrose market share rose to 5%,
from 4.7% in the 12 weeks ended Dec. 8, 2013.
At the other end of the scale, the top four supermarkets saw
their market shares fall.
For the 12 weeks ended Dec. 8 Tesco PLC's (TSCO.LN) market share
fell to 29.1% from 29.9%, while J. Sainsbury PLC (SBRY.LN) fell to
16.5% from 16.8%. Wm Morrisons Supermarkets PLC (MRW.LN) market
share fell to 11.2% from 11.56, while Asda, a subsidiary of
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), fell to 16.7% from 16.9%.
Individually, Aldi's market share has risen to 4.9% from 4%,
while Lidl's market share has risen to 3.7% from 3.1%.
"Britain's supermarket price war is ramping up ahead of the
all-important Christmas period. Retailers are selling more items on
promotion, leading to like-for-like prices falling by 0.7% compared
with this time last year," Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and
consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel said.
"Cheaper groceries are an early Christmas present for shoppers,
saving them 182 million pounds ($285.8 million) in the past 12
weeks alone but this puts pressure on the supermarkets. We expect
grocery deflation to continue well into 2015 as the price war
rumbles on," Mr. McKevitt added.
Write to Ian Walker at ian.walker@wsj.com
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