Growth in the Northern Irish grocery market slowed to 0.4% during the 52 weeks to 29 December.
The data from Kantar shows volume sales continued to decline and are now also down 0.4% year-on-year. Despite prices rising on average by one pence per item, this was offset by customers adding fewer goods to their baskets.
Commenting on individual retailer performances, Charlotte Scott, Consumer Insight Director at Kantar, said: “Tesco maintained its status as the only one of the three largest retailers to achieve growth in the period – increasing its market share to 35.6% with sales up by 1.5%. Falling basket sizes were outweighed by shoppers making an average of seven more trips to the retailer than they did this time last year.
“Sales at Asda and Sainsbury’s dropped this month by 2.5% and 1.2% respectively. Although basket sizes are now growing at Asda – up by 1.4% – the retailer has struggled with a loss of shoppers as penetration fell by 2.5%. Sainsbury’s on the other hand has seen basket sizes fall, down by 4.6%. An increase in shopper frequency and pack price, up by 1.1%, at the supermarket was not enough to outweigh the trend towards smaller trips.
“Lidl was the best performing retailer this period with sales 4.2% higher than the previous year, helping it gain 0.2 percentage points of market share. Although basket sizes at the retailer fell into decline, this was outweighed by a higher number of shoppers. While people shopping at Lidl bought less, the retailer did benefit from a rise in pack prices, suggesting that shoppers were choosing more premium options.”
