Retail giant Tesco is showing the first signs of market recovery, according to the latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, for the 12 weeks ending 1 February 2015.
They show that the overall grocery market grew at 1.1 per cent during the period, the fastest rate since June 2014. The analyst also reported that grocery inflation saw its 17th successive fall to stand at -1.2% for the same 12 week period.
“All of the major grocers have continued to compete fiercely on price leading to like-for-like grocery prices falling by 1.2%. This is another record low, saving Britain’s shoppers £327 million over the past 12 weeks, explained Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel. “Tesco returned to growth for the first time since January 2014, increasing sales by 0.3% compared to this time last year. Britain’s largest retailer is bouncing back from a tough year, with Dave Lewis’s efforts to overhaul the supermarket attracting an additional 236,000 shoppers into its stores in the last 12 weeks. Despite the increase in sales, Tesco’s overall market share fell to 29.0%, down by 0.2 percentage points compared to last year.”
Asda reclaimed the title of second largest retailer this period with 16.9% of the market, overtaking Sainsbury’s, which traditionally performs more strongly at Christmas although both companies saw sales fall compared with a year ago. “Early results suggest that discounters Aldi and Lidl will find their accelerated growth levels hard to match in 2015,” added Mr McKevitt.
