Aldi becomes sixth biggest food retailer but sales growth slows
ALDI has overtaken Waitrose as the UK’s sixth biggest supermarket, according to figures out yesterday that also cautioned that growth among the discounters was slowing.
Aldi’s sales grew by 16.8 per cent in the 12 weeks to 30 March compared with a year earlier, taking its market share to 5.3 per cent, data from Kantar Worldpanel shows.
While still high compared with other retailers, it is also the slowest growth recorded by Aldi since 2011 and well below the 35 per cent growth in 2014. Sales at Lidl also slowed to 12.1 per cent growth over the 12-week period compared with 16.6 per cent a year earlier.
Despite slowing growth the discounters now command a record nine per cent share of the market while the big four have a 72.8 per cent share – the lowest in a decade.
Tesco performed the best with sales increasing by 0.3 per cent followed by Sainsbury’s, up 0.2 per cent. Asda and Morrisons declined by 1.1 and 0.7 per cent respectively. Waitrose grew sales by 2.9 per cent.