Aldi and Lidl have been rising through the market, taking up the shares of the market that the big four stores have dropped while waging their war against each other. Trying to price each other out and reap larger sections of the market has left the smaller discount stores to pick up the slack and grow themselves.
Aldi and Lidl, collectively now own around 10 per cent of the market, up from just 5 per cent five years ago. The increase is shocking and has shaken the market which was so under the control of Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda and Morrisons.
The order of these four retail giants has moved and changed over this period of struggle, and all have suffered both losses and gains. Arguably, the future of Morrisons is most at risk, with them selling off huge amounts of property and convenience stores, in an attempt to get a grip back on the market.
Aldi is still in the lead of Lidl, with 5.6 per cent of the overall market, while Lidl have claimed 4.4 per cent.
“In the last two weeks the two retailers have attracted another additional million shoppers compared with last year while average spend per trip has increased by 4 per cent to £18.85, which is 78p ahead of the total retailer average,” according to the head of retail and consumer insight for Kantar Worldpanel.
The expansions of these discounters should be putting a scare into the bigger stores, who could well lose out on even more business as Aldi and Lidl spread and claim more of the market share with their budget prices, which no matter how they cut, the big four can’t seem to match.
