UK's discount supermarkets benefit from downturn
The latest TNS Worldpanel grocery market share figures for the UK (for the 12 weeks ending 2nd November 2008) underline the way in which the economic downturn is impacting grocery shares, according to Ed Garner, director of research for TNS Worldpanel.
Simply put, grocery retailers with strong price positioning are continuing to benefit, while the premium end of the market is clearly under increasing pressure.
The country's leading supermarkets' market shares now stand as follows:
- Tesco: 30.9%;
- Asda: 17.1%;
- Sainsbury's: 15.9%;
- Morrisons: 11.4%;
- Somerfield: 3.9%;
- Waitrose: 3.8%.
Waitrose has seen its growth rate fall back progressively for the past 8 reporting periods, and now stands at 1.3% year-on-year growth. This is in contrast to the discounters, where growth continues to forge ahead. The combined discounter sector (i.e. Aldi, Lidl and Netto) now stands at a record 6.2% market share, and Aldi's year-on-year growth has reached a record 23.9%.
But for the major outlets, the pace continues to be set by Asda and Morrisons which are both out-performing the market with growth rates of 9.0% and 9.4% respectively.
Pressure on Tesco's market share has also continued with a year-on-year drop of 0.4 share points, while the Sainsbury's performance has been robust (with its market share being almost unchanged despite the market being increasingly driven by value-based messages).
As TNS predicted, grocery price inflation has started to fall back, now standing at only 8.9% compared to 9.3% in the previous market share study. This figure was based on year-on-year comparisons of over 75,000 identical products, in the average proportions purchased by British shoppers.
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