Kantar figures show that Sainsbury’s was the best ‘big four’ performer at Christmas
Latest figures on the grocery market have shown that increased consumer spending over Christmas helped the market to grow at its fastest rate since August and that Sainsbury’s was the best performing ‘big four’ supermarket.
Figures released by Kantar Worldpanel for the 12 weeks ending 4 January, reveal that sales growth was 0.6%.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “Shoppers chose to buy a little bit more this Christmas compared with last year, a trend which has pushed sales growth up to 0.6%. This is low in historical terms, but a rally for the supermarkets compared with recent months.”
Sales at Sainsbury’s fell by 0.7% year-on-year in the period to take its market share to 16.9%. This means that Sainsbury’s is now the UK’s second largest grocer for the first time since it lost the position in 2003.
Sales dropped by 1.6% at both Asda and Morrisons to take their shares of the grocery market to 16.8% and 11.3% respectively.
In it best performance since March 2014, Tesco’s sales declined by 1.2% compared with last year to take its share to 29.1%.
Meanwhile, Aldi and Lidl grew their sales by 22.6% and 15.1% which left their market shares at 4.8% and 3.5% respectively. In addition, Kantar found that more than half of all UK households visited at least one of the two retailers over the past 12 weeks. Waitrose also maintained its strong run with sales rising 6.6% to take its market share to 5.1%.
