The latest figures from Kantar World Panel have revealed that Dunnes Stores is now tied with Tesco in holding the second biggest share of the Irish grocery market, with 21.6%.
This is the result of recent strong growth for Dunnes Stores, which increased its sales by 6.3% across the 12 weeks ending 11 September 2016.
David Berry, director at Kantar Worldpanel, explained, “Larger trips have boosted sales for Dunnes, with the average spend increasing by €2.50 to €37.20 in the latest quarter, compared with the same time last year.
“Dunnes has successfully tempted shoppers to add more expensive items to their baskets, with the average price per item rising to €2.05 – an increase of 12% on last year.”
Tesco has seen value sales fall by 2.3%, however, it continues to sell more items, with volume sales 1.9% higher than the same time last year. According to Kantar World Panel, the performance gap between value and volume sales is a reflection of a lower average price point at Tesco, which is in part the result of its ‘Staying Down Prices’ campaign.
Meanwhile, Musgrave-owned SuperValu remains Ireland’s largest grocer, with a share of 22.4%, and having increased sales by 3.1% year on year. This is the third consecutive month that the retailer has seen growth of over 3%, something that has been boosted by shoppers adding more items to their baskets on average each time they shop.
Finally, Berry noted on the discounters, “Lidl’s market share now stands at 11.7% – in line with last year – while sales increased by 4.5%. Three core categories have contributed most significantly to the strong performance, with produce, meat and bakery together accounting for €11 million of extra sales compared with last year.”
He concluded that, “Meanwhile, sales growth for Aldi continues to improve, with market share increasing from 11.2% last year to 11.4% in the latest period.”
© 2016 - Checkout Magazine by Jenny Whelan
