UK: Aldi and Lidl enjoy record Christmas
Tesco and Sainsbury’s are due to post underwhelming Christmas trading updates this week, with Tesco’s like-for-likes potentially falling by as much as 2.5pc and Sainsbury’s battling to avoid a run of 35 consecutive quarters of sales growth ending.
The German discounters declined to reveal their sales numbers, but Aldi said it enjoyed its “busiest Christmas since opening in the UK”, which was more than 20 years ago, while Lidl recorded “our best performance to date over the Christmas period”.
Clive Black, analyst at Shore Capital, said: “Overall we sense that Christmas 2013 will be seen to be 'alright’ in the big scheme of things but with some doing a lot better than others. "Trends evident going into Christmas are expected to have been sustained, unsurprisingly. For the food retailers, the hard discounters are expected to have remained in the groove, gaining share, although we are not sure that Iceland shared in this 'value party’ to the extent that Aldi, FarmFoods and Lidl did.”
In a statement, Lidl said: “We are extremely pleased to announce that 2013 has seen our best performance to date over the Christmas period: our fresh British turkeys sold out on Christmas Eve, within 6 days of going on sale, our Comte de Brismand Champagne Brut was the top-selling product in value terms the week before Christmas, our busiest trading day was Monday 23rd December.”
Source: telegraph.co.uk
