Dunnes regains top spot in supermarket league

Dunnes Stores has reclaimed the top spot in the Irish grocery market for the first time since the beginning of the year, while Aldi has leapfrogged Lidl in the never-ending store wars.

The latest grocery market share figures published by Kantar Worldpanel suggest that Dunnes had sales growth of 3.4 per cent over the past 12 weeks giving it an overall market share of 22.1 per cent which is just over half of one per cent ahead of its main rivals in the supermarket space.

After six consecutive periods at the top, Tesco has now fallen into second spot with a market share of 21.5 per cent while SuperValu had 21.4 per cent of sales in the most recent 12 weeks period.

"Although SuperValu holds a 26 per cent share in its Munster heartland, the retailer is less represented in Dublin, where it only accounts for 19.4 per cent of sales. By contrast, Tesco and Dunnes perform more strongly in the capital, with shares of 23.6 per cent and 26.1 per cent respectively," said Kantar's consumer insight director Douglas Faughnan.

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Christmas

Dunnes traditionally performs strongly over the festive period and the retailer may feel like Christmas has come early this year. “While it is too soon to assess the full impact of its new Everyday Savers offer, which prices many own-brand everyday items at €1 or less, Dunnes’ continued focus on shopper campaigns has helped to attract an extra 14,000 shoppers this period,” Mr Faughnan said.

Sales growth of 4.5 per cent has seen Aldi’s share of the market climb to 11.8 per cent. It attracted an additional 28,000 shoppers through its doors, with over 80 per cent of its growth in the past 12 weeks coming through family shoppers.

Lidl turned in a strong performance growing its market share to 11.7 per cent on the back of sales growth of 3 per cent.

Tesco's recent announcement of free delivery for over-65s when they spend €50 or more shows it is looking to further cash in on the growth of online shopping in Ireland.

Although just 2.4 per cent of grocery retailing comes through ecommerce at present, this figure is forecast to double in the next three years and retailers are now looking at new ways to capture a bigger share of the online pie.

Lidl is the latest retailer to try and make the most of the online boom, partnering with app Buymie to allow shoppers in a small number of Dublin postcodes to order groceries on their phones.