The Co-operative Group is continuing to outperform the market with sales up 3.3% year on year and market share now at 6.2%.
The discounters also continued their growth, according to the latest Kantar Worldpanel figures for the 12 weeks to 24 April, while all the major supermarkets fell back.
The Co-op’s market share was up from 6% in April 2015 as its programme of store refurbishments continued and its improved range saw shoppers visit more often and spend more each trip, said Kantar Worldpanel head of retail and consumer insight Fraser McKevitt.
According to Kantar, Lidl remained the fastest-growing retailer with sales up 15.4% from an increase of 648,000 in shopper numbers.
Likewise, Aldi recorded a 12.5% rise in its sales, adding another 732,000 customers – more than any other retailer.
Waitrose increased market share by 0.1% to 5.2% on the back of a 1.5% sales growth.
Overall supermarket sales grew by just 0.1% on this time last year. This represented a steep drop from the 1.1% growth reported for the 12 weeks to 27 March, which benefited from the early Easter.
Both Tesco and Morrisons continue to be affected by recent store closures as their sales fell 1.3% and 2.6% respectively. Asda remained the worst performing of the big four with sales tumbling 5.1%. Even Sainsbury’s saw sales fall 0.4%.
“Sainsbury’s was the best-performing, though sales fell back by 0.4% – the first time the retailer has dipped into decline since July last year, though it retained its 16.5% share of the market,” said McKevitt.
“This marks the first time that each of the big four has simultaneously witnessed a drop in sales since April 2015.”
McKevitt said consumers were enjoying a golden period of cheaper groceries with like-for-like prices falling every month since September 2014.
“Nearly two years of falling prices mean the average household is spending £78.10 a week in the supermarket, so consumers have annually saved more than £400 than if prices had risen at the same rate as the last decade.”
McKevitt also said promotional levels fell in the past year, with only 38.5% of spend being on promoted goods in the most recent 12 weeks, down from 39.8% last April.
“Retailers are aiming for simplicity in their pricing and only a quarter of promotional spend is now through multibuy deals – a 24% drop on last year,” he said.
“This change has been evident across every grocer but most notably in Sainsbury’s, where only 7% of deals are now multibuys. Straight price cut deals tend to offer greater discounts so shoppers will see these as a welcome benefit across the market.”
Kantar said grocery inflation was now at -1.5%, down for the 21st consecutive period, reflecting the impact of Aldi and Lidl as well as deflation in categories such as fresh and processed pork, butter and crisps.
The overall market saw volume growth of 1%, which was in line with Britain’s increased population.
“Individual households have stopped increasing the amount of groceries they buy and while it is tempting to correlate lower volumes with the uncertainty surrounding the EU referendum, there is no evidence that supermarket purchasing has any significant link with consumer confidence,” McKevitt added.
Kantar calculates market share and sales volumes by monitoring household grocery purchases among 30,000 demographically representative households in Britain.
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