Aldi bags record Christmas sales after a year of store openings
Aldi boosted its Christmas sales in 2016 after a bumper year of store openings.
The discount supermarket opened seventy new stores throughout the year, leading it to 15 per cent year-on-year sales growth in December – its highest growth since landing in the UK in 1990.
Aldi did not disclose its like-for-like sales growth for the final month of 2016, but said the figure was "positive".
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The German discounter now has 692 stores in the UK and has plans to open 70 more this year, part of Aldi's push to gain a 10 per cent share of the UK grocery market. Aldi's 700th store will open in February.
Retail analyst Richard Hyman said: "I think 15 per cent is an excellent number and suggests very good like-for-like growth.
"There is an attempt to move the competitive narrative to focus on a slowdown in the discounters' market share growth, but this was bound to happen. The key point is that they are still growing, and by doing so taking share from the majors."
"As Britain's fastest-growing supermarket we remain committed to meeting the strong demand across the country for new Aldi stores," said Matthew Barnes, chief executive of Aldi UK.
The grocer offers some of the cheapest groceries in the country, but has announced that its staff would not be paying the price. Following Lidl's commitment to pay employees the living wage rate of pay, Aldi said it will be paying its staff the highest hourly rate in retail from 1 February.