Supermarkets experienced a slowdown in sales growth last month, according to new data from Kantar Worldpanel.
The firm’s latest grocery market figures show that sales rose 3.9 per cent year-on-year in the 12 weeks to 20 February, down slightly from the 4.2 per cent sales growth reported last month.
Of the big four supermarkets chains, both Sainsbury’s and Morrisons outperformed the overall market, recording growth of 5.2 per cent and 4.5 per cent respectively.
As a result, Sainsburys increased its share of the UK grocery sector by 0.2 per cent year-on-year to 16.5 per cent, while Morrisons maintained its 12.3 per cent share from the same period last year.
Tesco and Asda performed slightly behind the market, and now account for 30.3 per cent and 16.9 per cent of grocery sales respectively after both seeing their share slip by 0.1 per cent.
Outside of the top four, upmarket retailer Waitrose posted increased sales of 6.6 per cent compared to a year ago, taking its market share to a record high of 4.4 per cent.
The best performance was sent at discount chains Aldi and Lidl, which both saw sales soar by more than 13 per cent over the 12-week period, with respective market shares rising to 3.1 per cent and 2.4 per cent.
Commenting on the figures, Fraser McKevitt, retail analyst at Kantar Worldpanel, said: “With economic uncertainty increasingly in the news it is no surprise that shoppers are being cautious with their spending.”
“However, while the discounters are performing well this is not due to an increase in new shoppers, but rather because their existing customers are spending more with them.”
“The majority of people continued to seek value through promotions in the mainstream retailers, rather than trading down to the discounters.”
