>>Britain’s top retailer continues to extend its lead over rivals
While everybody has rightly been focusing this week on the fact that Asda has finally overtaken Sainsbury to occupy the number two spot in the supermarket league table, nobody should lose sight of an equally important fact, namely: the data also shows how Britain’s top retailer continues to extend its lead over rival operators.
According to the TNS figures, Tesco now commands more than 27% of the market compared with just over 16% a decade ago. It’s a phenomenal performance.
And it means, despite Asda’s breathtaking growth in recent years, Tesco remains 10 percentage points ahead of its deadly rival.
That is an important sub-text to this week’s story, as is the fact that the success of both these chains is being driven by non-food. As our TradeTrak data shows on page 23, when you look at pure grocery sales, Sainsbury remains firmly lodged in second spot. That must offer some comfort in what has been a pretty miserable couple of weeks for Sainsbury. But our figures also show that Asda is growing year-on-year and that Tesco continues to outperform on this measure too - despite the fact it is difficult for any grocery retailer to build value sales in such a deflationary environment.
The worry for suppliers, of course, is how much further grocery space will be squeezed in those businesses where non-food is the key driver of growth.
If there is another sub-text worth highlighting in all of this week’s hullabaloo then it is the fact that both Tesco and Asda are successful because they have the right size of stores (ie: big enough to take non-food) in the right sort of locations. As we approach the end point in the Safeway saga, Sainsbury is clearly aware it needs to rebalance its portfolio. After all, why else would it have been so keen to go public with a hypothetical deal to acquire 171 Somerfield stores? But even that thinking was dealt a blow this week by the decision to refer the plan to the Competition Commission. How those sitting in Cheshunt must have chuckled at that decision. After all, it’s not so many months ago that Tesco’s bid to acquire more than 1,000 T&S stores was nodded through by the authorities without a murmer.
But the thing that probably cheered the Tesco team the most was the fact that this week’s data confirms that their juggernaut is showing no signs of slowing.
no signs of tesco slowing
While everybody has rightly been focusing this week on the fact that Asda has finally overtaken Sainsbury to occupy the number two spot in the supermarket league table, nobody should lose sight of an equally important fact, namely: the data also shows how Britain’s top retailer continues to extend its lead over rival operators.
According to the TNS figures, Tesco now commands more than 27% of the market compared with just over 16% a decade ago. It’s a phenomenal performance.
And it means, despite Asda’s breathtaking growth in recent years, Tesco remains 10 percentage points ahead of its deadly rival.
That is an important sub-text to this week’s story, as is the fact that the success of both these chains is being driven by non-food. As our TradeTrak data shows on page 23, when you look at pure grocery sales, Sainsbury remains firmly lodged in second spot. That must offer some comfort in what has been a pretty miserable couple of weeks for Sainsbury. But our figures also show that Asda is growing year-on-year and that Tesco continues to outperform on this measure too - despite the fact it is difficult for any grocery retailer to build value sales in such a deflationary environment.
The worry for suppliers, of course, is how much further grocery space will be squeezed in those businesses where non-food is the key driver of growth.
If there is another sub-text worth highlighting in all of this week’s hullabaloo then it is the fact that both Tesco and Asda are successful because they have the right size of stores (ie: big enough to take non-food) in the right sort of locations. As we approach the end point in the Safeway saga, Sainsbury is clearly aware it needs to rebalance its portfolio. After all, why else would it have been so keen to go public with a hypothetical deal to acquire 171 Somerfield stores? But even that thinking was dealt a blow this week by the decision to refer the plan to the Competition Commission. How those sitting in Cheshunt must have chuckled at that decision. After all, it’s not so many months ago that Tesco’s bid to acquire more than 1,000 T&S stores was nodded through by the authorities without a murmer.
But the thing that probably cheered the Tesco team the most was the fact that this week’s data confirms that their juggernaut is showing no signs of slowing.
no signs of tesco slowing
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