SuperValu is in pole position in the supermarket wars as Tesco lags behind
The UK retailer remains in second place. while Dunnes Stores showed the strongest growth.
THE IRISH GROCERY market is growing, with SuperValu still the most popular.
According to the latest figures from industry analysts Kantar Woldpanel, the chain grew its sales by 1.4% and captured 22.6% of market share in the last 12 weeks.
That puts it 0.6 percentage points ahead of Tesco and 1.2 percentage points ahead of Dunnes Stores.
With the exception of Tesco, which saw a small drop in value of its sales, all of the major retailers increased sales in the past 12 weeks, with Dunnes posting the strongest performance and growing sales by 5.9%.
The company attracted an extra 13,000 shoppers to its stores this year with the average spend increasing by almost €20.
Lidl posted the second highest sales growth – 5.8% – which was mainly the result of attracting an additional 55,000 shoppers. Aldi sales grew by 3.6% in the latest quarter, with the discounter also recruiting an impressive 37,000 customers versus last year.
Spending more
However a combination of flat shopper numbers and only marginal increases in average spend mean Aldi continues to lag behind Lidl.
Georgieann Harrington of Kantar Worldpanel says that SuperValu’s success is down to convincing customers to spend more.
“SuperValu’s success is largely down to persuading the average shopper to spend an extra €14 per trip, no doubt driven by its ‘Let’s Get Cooking’ campaign,” he said.
“Sales remain challenging for Tesco in second place: the retailer saw a decline of 2.7% in the past 12 weeks.
“It’s not all bad news for Ireland’s number two retailer though, with the number of visits to its stores edging up: from 14 on average last year to 15 this year.”
Written by Paul Hosford and posted on TheJournal.ie
