Growth driven by price: battery value sales
Battery value sales  
     
  Value this year (£m)  % change
Alkaline   224.6 5.3
Specialist   43.5 9.9
Zinc Carbon   30.6 7.5
Button Cells/ Spcl Lithium   24.7 -0.8
Rechargeable   19.8 25.8
     
Branded 255.2 6.5
Own label 44.5 4.0

Increased prices have driven category growth. Batteries are on average 2.9% dearer this year and in sectors such as alkaline, where prices are up 4.3%, inflation is higher than at total grocery level. Lithium is the only sector to see a price decline (of 3.4%).

Shoppers are picking up batteries more often. However, the overall number of shoppers is down, particularly in pound stores and Tesco, which have seen losses of over 200,000 each. Bargain stores and the discounters have bucked this trend, attracting 7% and 9% more shoppers respectively.

While branded batteries have seen growth across all sectors, own label growth has been driven exclusively by alkaline batteries. Own label penetration has also fallen, from 27.1% to 26%. 

Of the big four, the only retailer to post growth with its own label range was Morrisons, which saw an increase in spend on promotion of nearly 100%. Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s saw just over £1m wiped off its offering as it gave more space to brands ahead of the recent relaunch of own label batteries under its ‘Home’ brand.