Lidl and Aldi take 10% of supermarket spend, Kantar says

Sainsbury's overtook Asda to become the second largest supermarket

Lidl and Aldi's market share is up 5 per cent in five years (GETTY IMAGES)

Budget upstarts Lidl and Aldi have snapped up a 10 per cent share of all consumer spending in supermarkets, according to the latest data from Kantar Worldpanel.

This is up from 5 per cent just five years ago. The rise of budget supermarkets has contributed to squeezed profits at the big four UK supermarkets - Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's - and launched a supermarket price war as the grocers battle it out for sales.

Aldi beats Lidl on market share. Sales at Aldi grew 16.5 per cent, keeping its market share at 5.6 per cent, while Lidl's market share reached a new high of 4.4 per cent, and sales there grew 19 per cent.

"In the last 12 weeks the two retailers have attracted another additional million shoppers compared with last year while average spend per trip has increased by 4% to £18.85, which is 78p ahead of the total retailer average," said Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel.

"The discounters show no sign of stopping and with plans to open hundreds of stores between them, they’ll noticeably widen their reach to the British population," he added.

Jonathan Neale, joint managing director of buying at Aldi, said that Aldi had made record investments in products from Champagne to mince pies ahead of Christmas.

"Christmas is when we typically see a spike in new shoppers visiting Aldi and we expect a significant contribution to sales growth over this period from our new stores that opened during 2015," Neale said.

Of the big four, Sainsbury's has sustained growth for four straight quarters, overataking Asda as the second biggest supermarket in the last 12 weeks.

Sales fell everywhere else. Tesco sales were down 2.5 per cent while Morrisons sales were down 1.7 per cent. Asda was worst hit, with sales down 3.5 per cent.

Connor Campbell, senior market analyst at Spreadex said that the German discounters headache shows no sign of abating.

"As if the Big Four need any more reminders that Aldi and Lidl are bearing down on them at a startling rate, the German discount upstarts have over 170 news stores in the works and now comprise 10% of the UK supermarket sector," Campbell said.

Earlier this year, Sainsbury's boss Mike Coupe said that he expected Aldi and Lidl to eat 15 per cent of market share by 2022.