10th Dec 2019 09:02
(Alliance News) - UK supermarket sales growth slowed amid uncertainty of a general election, a lacklustre Black Friday and a wet autumn, data from research agency Kantar showed on Tuesday.
Kantar's grocery market share figures for the 12 weeks to December 1 showed a modest 0.5% year-on-year supermarket sales growth to GBP27.67 billion from GBP27.53 billion.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: "We're yet to see consumers ramp up their spending in the run up to Christmas and, as anticipated, Black Friday only brought a limited boost for the grocers. The number of people claiming to take advantage of Black Friday this year fell to 53% from 57% in 2018 with signs of 'promotion fatigue' among consumers, an increased scepticism regarding the value of the deals on offer and some retailers pulling back from the day all together."
"With the General Election now only days away, people are waiting to fill their cupboards for the festive break and sales of Christmas puddings and seasonal biscuits are down 16% and 12% in the past four weeks, compared with this time last year," McKevitt added.
Kantar said sales growth of 9.3% in the 12 weeks period to December 1 to GBP1.68 billion propelled German discount grocery chain Lidl to a new record high market share of 6.1% from 5.6% a year ago. Meanwhile, fellow German retailer Aldi's saw 6.2% year-on-year sales growth to GBP2.22 billion in the period, increasing its market share to 8.0% from 7.6%.
Kantar said Tesco PLC was the best performing of the largest grocers over the 12 weeks though it is too early to say whether the newly launched Clubcard Plus subscription scheme has had an impact as sales fell by 0.8% in the 12 week period to GBP7.54 billion from GBP7.60 billion a year ago. Tesco's market share fell to 27.3% from 27.6% last year.
J Sainsbury PLC also saw its market share drop to 15.7% from 16.0% and sales were down 1.1% to GBP4.35 billion from GBP4.41 billion.
WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC saw its sales retreat 2.9% year-on-year to GBP2.80 billion from GBP2.89 billion, with its market share dipping to 10.1% from 10.5%.
Walmart Inc's Asda registered a 1.9% sales decline to GBP4.04 billion from GBP4.12 billion. Its market share declined to 14.6% from 15.0%.
Ocado Groyp PLC's sales jumped 13.7% year-on-year during the 12 week period to GBP384 million from GBP338 million, leading to a rise in its market share to 1.4% from 1.2%.
Also growing in market share was Co-operative Group, to 6.3% from 6.1%, with sales up 3.6% year-on-year to GBP1.76 billion from GBP1.69 billion.
Iceland Foods Ltd had its share of the market frozen at 2.2%, with the chilled products specialist registering sales growth of 3.2% year-on-year.
Waitrose & Partners suffered a 0.8% sales fall with its share of the market declining to 4.8% from 4.9% in the same period last year.
Kantar said grocery inflation was 0.8 for the 12-week period, with prices rising fastest in markets such as fresh sausages, dog food and frozen fish, while falling in fresh poultry, instant coffee and butter.
On Tuesday morning in London, Tesco shares were broadly flat, Ocado up 0.9%, Morrison's was down 2.5% and Sainsbury's down 0.8%.
By Tapan Panchal; [email protected]
Copyright 2019 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
TescoOcadoMRW.LSainsbury's