Aldi becomes UK’s fifth largest retailer
Aldi has overtaken Co-op to become the UK’s fifth largest retailer, figures from Kantar Worldpanel have revealed.
Results for the 12 weeks ending 29th January 2017 have shown that Aldi increased its market share by 0.6% points, with sales up 12.4% year-on-year.
An extensive programme of store openings is believed to have underpinned this growth, which has seen the retailer attract 826,000 more shoppers in the past quarter compared to the same period last year.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, commented: “Just a decade ago Aldi was the UK’s tenth largest retailer, accounting for less than 2% of the grocery market.
“Since then the grocer has grown rapidly, climbing the rankings by an impressive five places to hold a 6.2% market share.”
Despite falling in the retailer table, Co-op still saw a 2% sales increase.
“Co-op’s 2% sales increase was well ahead of the market, continuing a run of growth stretching back to July 2015,” McKevitt continued. “A significant own label sales increase of 7% was behind the strong performance, with healthier ranges successfully catering to consumers’ good intentions for the New Year.”
Amongst the ‘Big Four’ (Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons), Morrisons was the fastest growing retailer, increasing its market share for the first time since June 2015 with a sales uplift of 1.9% year-on-year.
Tesco sales were also up 0.3% year-on-year, growing for the fifth period in a row. Despite this its market share fell to 28.1%.
Meanwhile Sainsbury’s sales remained flat, while Asda saw a 1.9% fall in sales, signalling a decline which continues to slow.
Elsewhere, Waitrose, Lidl and Iceland all continued to grow. Waitrose sales were boosted 3.4%, increasing its share of the grocery market to 5.3% and Iceland was up 8.6% year-on-year and saw sales growth for the tenth consecutive period. Finally Lidl now holds 4.5% of the UK grocery market after seeing a 9.4% year-on-year sales increase.
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