The deep discounter supermarkets Aldi and Lidl both enjoyed record sales over Christmas as shoppers looked to cut costs.
Aldi reported a record Christmas, achieving sales of more than £1.5 billion in the run up to the festive period.
The deep discounter said that sales had jumped by 8% in the four weeks to Christmas Eve, compared with the same period in 2022.
The 22nd December in particular stood out, with more than 2.5 million customers turning to Aldi, its busiest ever trading day.
Giles Hurley, CEO of Aldi UK and Ireland, said that the supermarket was committed to further lowering the cost of groceries for households across the UK.
He said: “Our promise to customers is that they will always make significant savings on every shop with Aldi because we have the lowest grocery prices in Britain.”
In December, Aldi reclaimed top spot in the monthly price comparison carried out by Which?, having lost out to Lidl the month before, which brought a 16-month winning streak to an end.
Fellow deep discounter Lidl also reported record performance over Christmas, with sales up by 12% year on year.
It said that during the month of December, a total of 4.5 million people visited the supermarket’s stores, while 22 December was also its busiest day.
Lidl pointed to its ‘Deluxe’ range as being a particularly strong performer, with sales up by 11% annually.
Ryan McDonnell, CEO of Lidl GB, said that the supermarket had delivered on its “quality and price promise”, adding: “As we look ahead into 2024 and even higher footfall, we remain relentlessly focused on continuing to do what we do best ‒ which is always offering the highest quality on the market for unbeatable value.”
Switching supermarkets
The success of Lidl and Aldi has not been constrained simply to the festive period ‒ as cost-of-living pressures have continued to bite, increasing numbers of us have looked to save money on our groceries by switching supermarket over the last year.
This is borne out by the Kantar World Panel data on supermarket market share. Between Christmas 2022 and the end of November 2023, Lidl has grown its market share from 7.2% to 7.8%, while Aldi’s has moved from 9.1% to 9.6%, establishing it as the fourth biggest supermarket in the country.
By contrast, the likes of Asda, Morrisons and Waitrose have all seen their market share fall over the same time period
