It has said it will be running fewer deals – but Asda has increased its number of promos by more than its rivals over the past month says Ronan Hegarty

For a company trying to wean itself off promotions, Asda is clearly finding it tough to kick the habit.

It was by no means the heaviest promoter over the past month but a 16.9% increase in the number of deals it ran compared with May was much higher than any of its rivals and was odd for a retailer supposedly getting back to its Every Day Low Prices roots.

Asda had 1,646 promotions in featured space during the four weeks to 5 July, up 13.4% on the same period last year.

This was a lot less than both Morrisons and Sainsbury's but more than at Tesco, which had a total of 1,615 deals, up 15.7% on the previous month and 7.5% more than the same period last year.

In terms of volume of deals, Morrisons was way out in front with 2,239 offers and is clearly committed to the promotions-led strategy that has kept its sales ahead of its rivals over the past two years. Morrisons increased its volume of deals by 14.5% compared with May, and was up a whopping 18.4% on the same period last year.

With 1,864 promotions, Sainsbury's number of deals was up 10.6% on May and 15.1% on last year.

Of the major retailers only Waitrose was offering fewer deals than in the same period a year ago. Its 888 offers down on the 972 recorded last year suggests that not everyone has been going all out to capture that extra World Cup spend.

Apart from Waitrose, however, World Cup football fever was in full swing with beers, wines and spirits dominating promotional landscape.

Although the supermarkets would clearly have loved England to have prolonged their stay in the tournament, at least they were able to offer fans ample means to drown their sorrows. Alcohol deals made up 23.3% of all supermarket promotions over the past four weeks, a big increase on the 17.8% of deals that booze accounted for this time last year.

As a result of the strong emphasis on alcohol deals, impulse, health & beauty, household, frozen foods, meat and fresh produce all lost share.