Grocery Shares - 12 w.e 14.04.2013: Waitrose and discounters see strong share growth whilst Asda, Morrisons and Tesco slip

The latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel for the 12 weeks ending 14 April 2013 show an increasingly polarised grocery market with Waitrose, Aldi and Lidl all posting record market shares, whilst the leading multiples continued to struggle. . Aldi set two records in the latest period, with its highest ever growth of 31.1% delivering a record market share of 3.4%. Lidl’s market share of 3.0% is also an all-time high for the retailer. Edward Garner, director at Kantar Worldpanel, explained: “Pressure on household budgets is undoubtedly driving some of the growth at the discounters, but messages about quality are starting to resonate. Lidl announced this week that it will increase its fresh meat and poultry floorspace by 50% within the year, and Aldi’s new ‘convenience’ store in Kilburn is a departure from its traditional edge-of-town offering. These changes are likely to appeal to a new and different group of shoppers which will bolster the performance of the discounters even further.” Meanwhile, the strong performance of Waitrose continued, leading to a record share of 4.9%. Shoppers rate Waitrose highly in terms of provenance and clearly-defined supply chains – important credentials in the wake of the horse meat scandal and factors which have clearly boosted sales at the retailer. Within the big four, Sainsbury’s again delivered the strongest growth at 5.4% and was the only one to increase market share, now at 16.9%. Meanwhile, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons all saw their shares slip slightly with growth behind the overall market figure of 3.6%, impacted by the rise of the discounters. Updating on grocery inflation, Kantar Worldpanel said it stood 3.8% for the 12 week period. This was a fall from the 4.2% in its last report and is now only slightly higher than the market growth of 3.6%. These findings are based on Kantar Worldpanel data for the 12 weeks to 14 April 2013. Kantar Worldpanel monitors the household grocery purchasing habits of 30,000 demographically representative households in Great Britain. All data discussed in the above announcement is based on the value of items being bought by these consumers. Source: NamNews - Wednesday 24th April 2013