Consumer wins with lower grocery prices
New figures on the grocery market have shown that supermarket sales have slowed to a revenue growth of 0.2% compared to last year.
Kantar Worldpanel, which published its grocery share data for the 12 weeks ending 26 April 2015, said that growth in the market declined due to a record low for grocery price deflation, with a typical basket of everyday items now 2.1% cheaper than it was in 2014.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “Lower costs are the result of both falling commodity prices and the ongoing supermarket price war, with all major retailers offering cheaper like-for-like goods.
“This is good news for consumers, saving the average household £20 in the last three months. But many of the country’s largest grocers have struggled to enjoy substantial growth, with lower prices taking £532 million out of supermarket tills.”
More shoppers through the door helped Sainsbury’s to be the strongest performer among the ‘Big Four’ supermarkets in the period despite a 0.2% fall in sales. Its share of the market now stands at 16.5%, down 0.1 percentage points on last year.
Sales at Morrisons declined by 1.1% on a year ago to take its market share to 10.9% while Tesco sales fell back 1% to give it a market share of 28.4% – a decline of 0.4 percentage points compared to a year ago. Asda sales fell by 2.2% in the period which meant its market share was 16.9%.
Meanwhile, Waitrose saw a 1.5% increase in sales and its market share was 5.1%.
McKevitt added: “Aldi and Lidl continue to be the fastest growing retailers, up by 15.1% and 10.1% respectively. Both are rewarded with new record high market shares: 5.4% for Aldi and 3.8% for Lidl. While such growth is the envy of the industry it is slower than in recent months.”
