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About £10.3 billion spent on grocery in December with out of town superstores taking £5.6 billion
OXFORD UK, 10th January 2007
Once again Supermarkets have enjoyed a strong Christmas trading period with sales in the Grocery Multiples for the 4 weeks to 30th December growing at 6% versus the same period last year, slightly ahead of sales for the whole of 2006 which have closed at +5% reports global market information leaders, ACNielsen.
“All of the top 4 retailers have shown solid Christmas performances this year. This is the first time we have seen these kind of performances all round for several years. In total, the average buyer spent a massive £300 at supermarkets in the 4 weeks in December.” Commented Mike Watkins, Senior Manager Retailer Services, ACNielsen.
Of the major grocery retailers, the ACNielsen Total Till monitor reports that Tesco held its share of market at just over 29% - in the 4 weeks to 30/12/06 a massive 61% of households visited a Tesco store spending on average £156 each here over the period. This reflects strong trading for the whole year for the nation’s largest retailer.
Asda has regained more share on the back of robust Christmas sales following a mid year dip and holds firm with over 16% share of market in the final quarter of 2006.
Watkins continued, “Sainsbury’s has consolidated its trading. We have seen a turn-around from this retailer in 2006 and it has once again repeated the successful Christmas it enjoyed last year. Furthermore, though Morrison’s share hasn’t changed significantly, underlying consumer trends are seeing a growth in shopper numbers (one third of shoppers visited a Morrisons store in the 4 weeks to30th December) and increased spending per visit.”
ACNielsen reports that Waitrose has benefited from the propensity consumers have to trade-up to a more premium offering at Christmas time. The average sales per buyer here over the period were £121 per customer which is very high considering that other retailers have invested in their non-food offering to drive spending where as Waitrose relies on its quality food proposition.
Share of Grocery Market Spend by Retailer
Retailer |
12w/e 24/12/05 |
12 w/e 30/12/06 |
Tesco |
29.0 |
29.3 |
Asda |
16.6 |
16.4 |
Sainsbury’s |
14.9 |
14.9 |
Morrisons |
10.4 |
10.2 |
Total Co-op |
5.6 |
5.8 |
Somerfield |
4.0 |
3.7 |
Waitrose |
3.5 |
3.6 |
The figures in the table are based on 12 weeks sales through to 30th December 2006 compared to the same 12 week period last year. Source: ACNielsen Total Till
Fresh Produce and Personal Care sales Rocket While Sales Value Stripped from BWS market
When looking at sales of specific food categories over the festive period, ACNielsen Scantrack reports that the top performing food categories were Fresh Fruit and Veg (+10.8%), Meat, Fish and Poultry (+8.9%) and bakery (+6.6%).
Watkins observed, “Fruit and veg has performed well all year as consumers look to ways of becoming more healthy. The sector was also given an extra boost with significant increases in sales of organic produce over the Christmas period, specifically ready prepared organic produce grew a massive 147% while organic bananas grew at +39% YoY for the 4 weeks to 30th December.”
Gammon performed particularly well in the MFP sector, up at 11% YoY for Christmas while Turkey also grew at 6% YoY.
Health and personal care continued to sell well in this period as it has done all year – growth here ahead of the market at 7.8% for the Xmas period.
“As supermarkets have invested in their personal care offerings, consumers have really adopted the one stop shop approach when buying toiletries and at busy shopping periods such as Christmas the ability to pick up personal care items along with groceries is invaluable to the consumer.” Said Watkins.
Interestingly, the frozen category grew at 2.7% for the Christmas period - behind the market - but sales here have been poor all year so comparatively good for the sector. Frozen desserts were one area that showed strong growth with sales up 4.8% over Christmas. Cold desserts, in contrast, suffered sales declines of 10% in the 4 w/e 30/12/06.
Beers, Wines and Spirits sales declined 2.1% over the Christmas period in Supermarkets suggesting that the deep promotions retailers run to drive footfall (tempt shoppers in store) have again stripped value from the liquor market in what is it’s key trading period. The winners here were Champagnes & Sparkling Wines. Champagne’s value sales grew at 8.4% and sparkling wines at 3.8% despite the heavy price reductions.
Non-food sales, which would include items such as electrical goods, home entertainment, mobile phones and clothing, were reasonably strong at +6.3% however this is slightly behind the underlying full year figure (+7%) for sales of these types of goods. It is believed price deflation and a move to purchasing these types of items from major retailers online has slowed growth here.
About ACNielsen Homescan Total Till
Unless otherwise stated, data is based on all purchases, bar-coded and non bar-coded, brought back into the home from any outlet by an in-home scanning panel of more than 10,000 households. Total spend includes all items stocked by any outlet, including grocery, durables and clothing.
ACNielsen ScanTrack
All category and product data sourced from ACNielsen Scantrack. Scantrack monitors sales in all major retailers as recorded through the EPOS systems at the checkout. It is the most comprehensive measure of retail sales in Europe.
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