Morrisons slips behind on market share
ALDI has toppled Morrisons to become the fourth biggest grocery retailer in the UK.
The latest total till data from NielsenIQ recorded Aldi’s market share at 10%, ahead of ‘big four’ supermarket Morrisons’ 9%.
Data for the four-week period ending 13 August also revealed that convenience stores outperformed the grocery channel in terms of value sales growth.
Convenience store growth for the period rose 5.4%, ahead of grocery channel gains of 4.5%. The convenience channel also experienced an uplift in volume sales (2.7%), in contrast to the supermarkets, where volume sales were down by 3.8%.
Nielsen attributed some of the convenience channel’s performance to hot weather spells in August, when consumers will have purchased more drinks, frozen and fresh foods.
Mike Watkins, UK head of retailer and business insight, said inflation is responsible for “driving topline sales”, but warned shoppers continue to be “very cautious” when spending on groceries, leading to the volume sales decline in supermarkets.
“The market may have recovered from a low point in March, but we are now seeing the start of ‘peak inflation’ and we anticipate shoppers will need to rein in their spending again after the ‘back to school’ period in a few weeks’ time.
“As inflation continues to bite, retailers that focus on saving shoppers’ money will be the ones that maintain sales momentum and it will be those who are most agile and are able to adapt to another change in shopper behaviour that will be able to weather the storm.
“The battle for loyalty is not going away especially in a time where basket spends are falling and shopper promiscuity is up.”
