Lidl has revealed that its total UK sales jumped 17.9% over the four weeks to 27 December, confirming recent industry data that suggested it was amongst the top-performing supermarket chains during the festive period.
As with its main rival Aldi, Lidl still doesn’t provide like-for-like sales figures, with some of the growth being driven by new store openings during the year. Last week, Aldi revealed its total sales rose 10.6% year-on-year in the four weeks to Christmas eve.
Boosted by a voucher offer during the period, which encouraged shoppers to spend more than £40, Lidl saw its basket size value rise by 24.8% year-on-year.
The discounter said popular items included pink prosecco, panettone, mulled wine and its luxury mince pies. With recent industry data and figures from other chains suggesting consumers treated themselves even more than usual over Christmas, sales of Lidl’s premium Deluxe range jumped 22%.
Christian Härtnagel, Lidl GB chief executive, said: “Despite this Christmas being a difficult time for many across the country, we are pleased to have been able to help our customers enjoy themselves by offering high-quality food at the lowest prices on the market. Our record sales and significant basket size growth just demonstrates the strength of the Lidl appeal.”
Lidl continued to expand its store estate during the period with four new stores opened in December. The company stated that it remained “on track” to reach its target of 1000 UK stores by 2023, with £1.3bn in investment planned for the next two years.
NAM Implications:
- Key is the extent to which Aldi and Lidl are in direct competition…
- …and how they will battle one another to drive share…
- …especially with the mults mounting a pretty robust response.
- Time for suppliers to reassess their customer portfolios in terms of invest, maintain and divest?
