Aldi and Lidl conquer British market

Discounters Aldi and Lidl have captured an increasing market share in the United Kingdom and they are not ready to halt their British assault. Both retailers have plenty of plans to continue their expansion.

Major investments

Aldi currently has about 750 stores in the United Kingdom, but wants to increase that to 1,000 by 2022. Lidl is even more ambitious: it sees an opportunity for 1,200 to 1,500 stores in the United Kingdom, a sizeable increase on its current store network of 710.

Aldi hopes to open 70 new stores this year and it will invest 1 billion pounds (1.15 billion euro) by the end of 2018. Lidl will invest 1.45 billion pounds (1.66 billion euro), spread across 2017 and 2018. The latter will open 50 stores this year and remodel another 30.

United Kingdom’s major four chains (Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons) rarely open new stores and have even cut jobs. The chains aim to cut costs in order to be able to compete with the two German discounters when it comes to price.

Aldi and Lidl currently have a joint 12.1 % market share in the United Kingdom and that should grow to 15 % by 2022, mainly because of new store openings. Both will also remodel their current store network and update their product range to meet the British consumers’ needs.