Britain's big four supermarkets continued to lose market share to the hard discounters Aldi and Lidl in the third quarter.
Data from market research group Kantar Worldpanel shows that in the 12 weeks to October 8, Aldi saw sales grow 13.4% from a year earlier while Lidl's sales rose 16.0%.
Big four facing tough competition
Both growth rates easily eclipsed the big names in the sector, with Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC (LON:MRW) doing the best of the big four with sales up 2.8%.
The supermarket is getting its act together at last with online sales, particularly in London and the south, where online sales rose 29%.
Market leader Tesco PLC (LON:TSCO) saw its sales grow 2.1%, while J Sainsbury plc (LON:SBRY) and Wal-Mart's Asda saw growth of 1.9% and 1.8% respectively.
It was the 17th successive period of growth for Britain's grocers, all of which is all very well, but over the same period the inflation rate was 3.2%, so all of the big four saw sales growth rates running below the inflation rate.
“Meanwhile, Christmas has already started in the supermarket aisles. £69 million of chocolate confectionery boxes were sold in the last four weeks – a near threefold increase on sales in August; mince pies reached sales of £4 million and the British public spent £1.1 million on Christmas puddings,” noted Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel.
Despite coming out best of the big four in the period, Morrisons' market share still dipped from 10.4% to 10.3%.
Tesco's share fell 0.3 percentage points to 27.9% and Sainsbury's share fell 0.2 percentage points to 15.8%.
Share increased for both Lidl and Aldi by 0.6 percentage points, up to 5.2% of the market for Lidl and 6.8% for Aldi.
Waitrose saw its share decline from 5.4% to 5.3% while the Co-op's share declined to 6.2% from 6.5%.