London, Oct 15 - German-owned low-cost supermarket chain Aldi has achieved its best ever share of the UK grocery market as budget-focused groups continue to outpace rivals in the consumer dowturn, a survey showed on Tuesday.
Aldi's sales rose by 22.1 percent in the 12 weeks to Oct 5, boosting its share of the market to a record 3 percent, researcher TNS Worldpanel said.
Of the country's four biggest supermarket chains, Morrison and Asda had sales growth of 9.6 percent and 9 percent respectively, outpacing market leader Tesco , which had growth of 5.5 percent.
TNS Worldpanel said food price inflation was 9.3 percent during the 12-week period, adding that the rate had now peaked and was expected to fall towards the end of the year.
12 wks to 12 wks to 12 wks to
05/10/08 07/09/08 07/10/07 Total till roll (mln stg) 27,303 27,468 26,299 Total grocers (mln stg) 19,827 19,925 18,587 Total multiples (mln stg) 18,494 18,575 17,266
Market share in percent
Tesco 31.4 31.5 31.8
Asda 17.1 17.3 16.8
Sainsbury 15.7 15.8 15.8
Morrison 11.2 11.0 10.9
Somerfield 3.9 3.8 4.2
Waitrose 3.8 3.8 3.9
Iceland 1.7 1.7 1.6
Lidl 2.3 2.4 2.3
Aldi 3.0 2.9 2.6