Discounter revival rolls on into February

The continuing revival of the discounters in 2011 has been confirmed by the latest monthly figures from Kantar Worldpanel.

According to a report in The Grocer, Aldi grew its market share in the three months to 20 February from 2.8% to 3.1%, new data shows, while Lidl boosted its share from 2.2% to 2.4%.
At the upper end of the market, Waitrose achieved its highest ever ranking, with market share of 4.4% for the period.

Sainsbury’s grew its share from 16.3% to 16.5%. That narrowed the gap to Asda in second place, whose share slipped slightly to 16.9%. And Tesco lost share, down 0.1 percentage points to 30.3% of the UK grocery market.

Kantar analyst Fraser McKevitt said the discounters’ growth was driven by existing customers spending more rather than by luring new shoppers from supermarket rivals.
“With economic uncertainty increasingly in the news it is no surprise that shoppers are being cautious with their spending,” he said. “The majority of people continued to seek value through promotions in the mainstream retailers, rather than trading down to the discounters.”

Pelican Communications are specialists in the environment, food and drink, outdoor and leisure and packaging sectors and offer a range of services such as media relations, brand management, event management and people development. Contact us for marketing and communications expertise.