SuperValu maintains retail top spot as sales grow 4.4%

SuperValu has retained its place as the number one retailer in the country despite strong growth from its two nearest rivals.

With a quarter of the entire grocery market, SuperValu’s sales growth of 4.4% outpaced the market average and helped it increase its share from 24.8% last year.

SuperValu’s dominance of the market continued despite Dunnes Stores enjoying the strongest growth of the top three retailers with sales up 5.1% compared to the same period last year.

Rather than enticing more customers, Dunnes Stores had success in convincing shoppers to spend more — €1.70 on average — on every trip.

Tesco, which is in second place behind Supervalu, will also be pleased with the latest data from consumer insights agency Kantar Worldpanel having achieved its strongest growth in more than three years.

“Tesco is still in second place, half a percentage point behind Supervalu, with 24.5% share of the grocery market,” said Kantar Worldpanel insight director, Georgieann Harrington.

“However, sales growth of 1.1% makes this the most positive performance Tesco has seen since November 2012, so things are still looking up for the retailer.”

The two German discounters, Aldi and Lidl, continued to eat into their competitors’ market share with the latter performing particularly strongly.

Overall, consumers are spending more than this time last year, with total spend up 3.8% over the past 12 weeks.