Sainsbury's woos shoppers back
British supermarket group Sainsbury’s has gained ground on rival Asda by luring more shoppers into its stores, figures showed today.
Sainsbury’s, which is the country’s number three supermarket behind Asda, increased its share of the UK grocery market to 15.9% in the 12 weeks to April 24 from 15.5% last year, according to market research group TNS.
Asda’s share fell slightly to 16.5% – but both were still dwarfed by market leader Tesco, which increased its share to 29.8% from 27.5%.
The improvement by Sainsbury’s follows a tough period for the firm, which hit a new low in its 135-year history in November when it announced half-year losses for the first time.
The former number one chain has been trying to fight back with a sales-led turnaround programme launched late last year.
Edward Garner, director of the TNS Superpanel, said: “Against this competitive background, Asda has actually suffered a small loss of share and this underlines the fact that their growth has noticeably slowed from the levels seen last year.”
Elsewhere, Morrisons-branded stores continued to grow – but the wider group’s progress was dragged down by outlets still not converted from the Safeway format. Morrisons has experienced problems integrating Safeway, which it bought for £3bn (€4.4bn) last year.
