Discounters keep eating away British supermarkets' market share

The four largest supermarket chains in the United Kingdom have lost a part of their market share in the last few months – again. The main winners are discounters Lidl and Aldi… and Ocado.

Morrisons loses most

Market leader Tesco saw its quarterly turnover drop by 1.6 % compared to the same period last year, European Supermarket Magazine has found out. It still remains the biggest chain in Great Britain by a landslide though, with its market share of 27 %. Sainsbury’s succeeded in limiting its turnover loss to 0.6 %, keeping hold of 15.4 % of the market. Asda’s turnover fell by 1.5 %, Morrisons’ even by 2.7 %. The ‘big four’ now control 67.4 % of the market, exactly one percent lower than a year earlier.

On the other hand, three clear winners are discernible. Aldi and Lidl are the major destinations for those ‘lost customers’, and were able to raise their turnover with 6.2 % and 7.7 % respectively. Aldi’s market share has gone up to 8.1 %, while Lidl’s rose to 5.9 %. The latter has been opening a large number of new stores in the UK and was able to attract more customers – who also spent 19.3 % more per average store visit.

However the fastest growth was achieved by a small online player: Ocado raised its turnover by 12.6 % and now has a market share of 1.4 %. The company lured in 7 % more customers, while the average amount per order went up by 1.93 pounds (2.1 euros) compared to a year earlier.