The latest round of ‘Asda Price’ cuts had a clear mission: to reignite shopper loyalty and steal market share from Tesco and the discounters. However, Asda experienced a 5.9% year-on-year revenue decline in Q1 2025, with market share dropping from 13% to 12.1%.
Asda’s 2024 accounts showed a decline in profit of £779m vs 2023, turning group like-for-like numbers from 5.4% growth into 3.4% decline. Asda claims its core business remains strong, delivering a pre-tax profit of £115m before exceptional items. But accepting that c£646m was one-off impairment charges and Walmart systems disentanglement, those numbers don’t add up: it’s half that.
The supermarket also incurred climbing finance costs to service the debt pile, while market share has since continued to erode, dropping 1.7% year on year to just 11.9% in the 12 weeks to 15 June 2025 [Kantar].
Asda executive chairman Allan Leighton boasts of “green shoots of recovery”, with a price gap to its traditional competitors starting to emerge. There is no question Asda has a plan. However, with a £3.8bn debt burden, it lacks the margin to sustain a meaningful price war. It’s either vanity or insanity.
Asda can’t keep showing share and sales declines and calling it healthy. Recently announced job cuts are a good idea, but risk damaging store standards and staff morale. Both are already fragile, given Asda has already received fines for out-of-date stock.
Darren Blackhurst appointment
To turn this around, Asda needs supplier support, which means inspiring their trust to invest. Major suppliers budgeting for 2026 are reapportioning trade spend to the new share map and favouring growth channels.
After years of strategic inconsistency and customer drift, Asda will need to do some selling job here. Especially as the 2025 GSCOP survey reveals a worsening relationship with suppliers. Positive code compliance ratings have dropped from 94.9% to 94.1%, with five times more suppliers claiming it ‘never’ complies.
Enter Darren Blackhurst as chief commercial officer. “Disaster,” I hear you say! Blackhurst, though, I consider to be a smart move among Asda’s recent dice rolls. He is a retail character of top order with solid commercial thinking credentials.
Blackhurst has undone himself in the past with excessive war rhetoric, but his true style is trading – make his business rock and so will yours. Suppliers should expect a carrot-and-stick offensive. They will need to choose to be the one big Asda player in their category or be sidelined.
His challenge will be to remain strategic while collecting the investment. For suppliers, it’s a leap of faith and one I would only make if it was heavily weighted towards the convenience format. Fuel and convenience will be star channels and fundamental to Asda’s survival. They offer fast tangible payback where Asda has strengths and are pushing on an open shopper door. Unlike the large store turnaround via price message, which Allan Leighton acknowledges is “not a short-term fix”.
Blackhurst is a good bet, and his Mad Hatter approach might just do well for Allan in Blunderland.
David Sables, CEO of Sentinel Management Consultants
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