Lidl and Aldi share title of Britain’s fastest growing supermarket, data reveals

Both retailers managed to grow their sales by an impressive 16.8 per cent at the end of 2017 compared to the same period last year

Aldi last week posted a 15 per cent rise in UK sales for December (Aldi)

German discounter duo Lidl and Aldi shared the title of Britain’s fastest growing supermarket in the three months to the end of December, figures published by Kantar Worldpanel on Tuesday revealed.

Both retailers managed to grow their sales by an impressive 16.8 per cent compared to the same period last year, taking Aldi’s share of the entire UK grocery market to 6.8 per cent from 6 per cent a year earlier, and Lidl’s to 5 per cent from 4.4 per cent in December 2016.

Aldi last week posted a 15 per cent rise in UK sales for December, taking total annual sales across the UK and Ireland above the £10bn mark for the first time ever.

On a similarly upbeat note, Lidl earlier this week announced that it plans to open a massive new warehouse in Luton, creating some 1,000 jobs, to support five new stores expected to open across Greater London.

“In some ways Christmas is a tricky time for the discounters: they tend to lose a little market share compared to earlier in the year as many shoppers return to the more traditional supermarkets in search of old favourites,” said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel.

“Rising to the challenge, Aldi and Lidl collectively managed to attract nearly one million additional households during the past three months,” he added.

Of the UK’s four big supermarkets, Tesco was the fastest growing in the 12 weeks to the end of December, with sales up 3.1 per cent.

Kantar said that this was the fastest sales growth the retailer has seen since June, helped by a 6.4 per cent increase in sales of standard Tesco own label.

It said that with Christmas Day falling on a Monday, Tesco Express, like other convenience stores, were able to benefit from restricted Sunday opening hours for larger supermarkets and were able to capitalise on consumers wanting to do their shopping closer to home during the busy festive season.

Nonetheless, Tesco’s overall market share inched 0.2 percentage points lower to 28 per cent. Asda managed to grow sales by 2.2 per cent, but also suffered a 0.2 per cent loss of market share to 15.3 per cent. Morrisons’ share fell by the same amount to 10.7 per cent and Sainsbury’s declined by 0.3 percentage points to 16.4 per cent.

Kantar also found that overall online supermarket sales enjoyed their biggest ever Christmas, with a 4.9 per cent surge compared to the same period last year. And across both physical and online sales, shoppers spent more than £1bn more than they did during the previous year’s festive season.