Asda loses market share in last 3 months

Asda, the UK's second biggest supermarket, saw a marked fall in its market share over the three months to June 12, as shoppers defected to rivals.

According to figures from Kantar Worldpanel, market share of the Asda chain, which includes Netto, fell from 17.3pc over the three months to mid-June last year to 16.9pc this year.
The poor performance might explain why earlier this week Simon King, the number two at the chain and the man in charge of running Asda's shops, left the company with immediate effect after just six months in the role.

Kantar said that Tesco's share edged up over the period while J Sainsbury's share was static.

The biggest winners, however, were the discount retailers Aldi and Lidl - who saw their shares increase from 3.1pc to 3.4pc and 2.3pc to 2.6pc respectively.

Waitrose, the upmarket retailer owned by John Lewis Partnership, also saw its share rise from 4.2pc to 4.3pc.

An Asda spokesman said: "As we've said consistently, once you take out new space from the Kantar numbers, you get a slightly different picture. The fact remains we continue to do all the right things right now... We're keeping a lid on inflation and revamping our food ranges and only last week were named Britain's favourite place to shop by customers. That's why we're confident we're making good progress."

He added stores in the recently acquired Netto chain that have been converted to the Asda format "have exceeded our high expectations".

The Kantar figures showed that overall sales growth at UK supermarkets has slowed dramatically over the last month as shoppers reined in their spending after a consumption binge during the royal wedding and Easter.

Source : James Hall - The Telegraph.co.uk
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8590340/Asda-loses-market-share-over-last-three-months.html