TESCO and Sainsbury’s, the biggest and third-biggest supermarket chains in the UK, ran a dead heat in the battle for festive sales growth, according to new market data unveiled yesterday.
The pair both posted identical gross sales growth rates of 3.9 per cent in the six weeks ending 6 January, said market researcher Kantar Worldpanel. Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s market shares remained unchanged in the period.
It marks something of a Christmas recovery from Tesco as last week Kantar published data for the longer 12-week period to 23 December suggesting that Sainsbury’s was the only one of the big four supermarket groups to gain market share.
Edward Garner, Kantar director, said: “This represents a clear improvement in Tesco’s fortunes following a series of [market] share dips in 2012, but it is also a strong performance from Sainsbury’s which had been predicted to suffer disproportionately from the Tesco fightback by some commentators,”
He noted the overall grocery market grew by 3.8 per cent, but added that it was driven by inflation rather than volume growth.
Kantar estimated that Asda, which is not due to report until February, saw sales growth of 2.1 per cent in the six-week period, while Morrisons sales fell 1 per cent.
Kantar said Asda’s market share dipped to 17.7 per cent from 17.9 per cent and “represents a bedding-in of the Netto acquisition”. It added: “Elsewhere, shoppers continued to seek value for money with ongoing positive performances for Aldi, Lidle and Iceland.”
One analyst said: “It is clear that Morrisons was the clear loser this Christmas.”