Tesco keeps on losing share to cut price rivals
LEADING supermarket Tesco failed to increase sales as quickly as its rivals in the last 12 weeks, data out yesterday showed, while leaked documents showed the Co-op is well behind its sales targets already this year.
Tesco’s sales rose 2.5 per cent in the 12-week period ending 19 February, compared with the same period last year, lagging behind a 4.7 per cent rise at Asda, 5.3 per cent for Sainsbury’s and 3.8 per cent at Morrisons.
As a result of this relatively slow sales growth, Tesco’s market share fell from 30.3 per cent a year ago to 29.7 per cent now.
Rival Asda held steady at 17.5 per cent, while Sainsbury’s shuffled up from 16.5 per cent to 16.6 per cent.
Waitrose’s market share climbed from 4.4 to 4.5 per cent, Iceland’s grew from two to 2.1 per cent and Aldi’s jumped from 3.1 to 3.6 per cent.
Part of the reason for Tesco’s relative decline over the last 12 weeks is, it believes, heavy couponing by rivals around the Christmas period, while it hopes to have made up ground again with its own promotions in the last month.
Meanwhile Co-op is thought to be struggling to integrate the acquired Somerfield stores into its wider business.
Its market share fell from 6.7 to 6.3 per cent, and documents seen by The Independent revealed the supermarket’s food sales are already £15.55bn behind budget so far this year.
The leaked papers also showed the company struggling with hundreds of customer complaints each week.