Tesco has grabbed a bigger slice of Britons’ supermarket shopping, as it stepped up sales and market share, while its rival Asda continued to struggle amid rising grocery inflation.
The UK’s biggest supermarket increased its market share to 28.3% in the 12 weeks to 5 October, up 0.7 percentage points on a year earlier, while its sales advanced nearly 7%, according to Worldpanel by Numerator.
By contrast, Asda’s market share fell 0.9 percentage points year-on-year to 11.8% with sales sliding by 3.2%.
The slip came despite efforts by the new executive chair, Allan Leighton, to draw back shoppers by cutting prices and improving service in stores. The company announced cuts on 1,000 products last week after reducing an average of 22% on more than half its products in the past year.
Asda’s sales have been falling for more than a year as it has been losing out to its bigger rivals, including Tesco and Sainsbury’s, as well as the discounters Aldi and Lidl.
Tesco’s sales growth outpaced most of its big rivals except Lidl, which increased sales by 10.8%. The German discounter is close to overtaking Morrisons to become the UK’s fifth largest grocer, with a market share of 8.2% compared with the Bradford-based chain’s 8.3%.
Fraser McKevitt, the head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel, said: “Households are juggling a lot of different things when choosing what and where to buy their groceries. Inevitably, cost will be up towards the top of the list as price rises accelerate.
“Spending on offers has hit its highest level since April at 29.4%, as consumers hunt for deals to ease the burden on their wallets. Promotions often jump in the run-up to the festive season so it’s likely the trend will continue as we get closer to December.”
Grocery price inflation ticked up to 5.2% in the four weeks to 5 October, from 4.9% the previous month, according to Worldpanel, the highest level since July.
Prices are rising fastest on chocolate, fresh meat and coffee, which are offsetting falls in toilet paper, sugary sweets and sparkling wine.
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Despite the hunt for deals, more households are shopping online for their groceries – perhaps in a sign of an increasing return to the office.
The grocers’ online sales rose 12% compared with the same four weeks last year making up 12.7% of their sales – the highest share since March 2022, according to Worldpanel, formerly known as Kantar.
More than one in five British households did their grocery shopping online at some point in September, marking a return to the popularity in the latter stages of the Covid pandemic.
