Dunnes was the strongest performer out of Irish grocery's ‘Big Three’ in the 12 weeks ending May 25, according to the latest market share figures from Kantar Worldpanel.
Dunnes saw its sales grow by 0.7% year-on-year for the period, to stand at 21.4% market share.
Kantar Worldpanel's David Berry attributed Dunnes' performance to its use of 'round euro' promotional offers in store, with 30% of Dunnes' in-store offers using a 'round euro' price point, up from 20% last year.
"Dunnes is making a pretty good impact with its regular deals, such as the current 'Weekly Wonders'," Berry told Retail Intelligence. "The challenge is obviously going to be sustaining that."
Berry also noted that Dunnes' current performance is out of sync with previous years, when it generally starts to see an uplift towards the end of the summer, in the Back to School period. "Generally, Dunnes sees a summer dip, so it's quite interesting that it is really trying to coincide a lot of strong offers with the summer period this year. Back to School through to Christmas is usually the big timeframe for Dunnes."
By contrast, Tesco, still the market leader with 26.3% of the market, saw its sales decline 4.7%, however there are signs that its decline may be slowing, with its performance up since the end of 2013 (when it posted a -7% like-for-like decline). "Tesco has actually recruited more shoppers than this time lat year," Berry told RI. "A big problem for Tesco over the last year is that it has been losing shoppers, so maybe the tide is starting to turn on that."
SuperValu, which holds 24.8% of the market, saw a slight decline in sales (-0.1%). SuperValu gained an extra 32,000 customers through its doors, Kantar found, recording a seventh consecutive month of footfall growth.
Aldi and Lidl continue to perform strongly, now commanding respective market shares of 8% and 7.9%. In the case of Lidl, this is a new record high. Both retailers managed to maintain double-digit growth for the 12 weeks ending 25 May, with Aldi achieving growth of 21.6% and Lidl 13.2%.
In total, discounters accounted for 15.9% of the grocery market over the 12-week period.
© 2014 - Checkout Magazine by Stephen Wynne-Jones
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