Lidl Aiming To Overtake Morrisons

Namnews, 18th November 2022

Having recently already lost the fourth spot in the UK’s largest grocery retailer rankings to Aldi, Morrisons could soon be leapfrogged by Lidl.

After posting solid year-end results yesterday and revealing that cash-strapped shoppers were flocking to its stores, Lidl GB’s Chief Executive stated that the discounter had the “momentum” to overtake the struggling Big Four supermarket.

Asked if he expects to surpass Morrisons in the near future, Ryan McDonnell told the Daily Mail: “I think so, yeah.”

He added: “We have a very healthy pipeline for our expansion. I am not calculating at what point I am going to overtake, but certainly we have a lot of potential to keep taking market share and enjoy more switching gains.”

Updating on its current trading yesterday, Lidl cited industry data from Kantar showing shoppers last month switched £58m of spending from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons to the discounter. This followed Lidl attracting over 770,000 more people to its stores each week compared to last year.

McDonnell stressed yesterday that Lidl was well stocked for Christmas after experiencing localised availability issues during the summer.

Kantar data released last week showed Lidl’s market share had increased from 6.2% to 7.2% over the last year, while Morrisons’ had fallen from 10.0% to 9.0%.

Retail analyst Richard Hyman stated that it was just a matter of “when, not if” Lidl surpasses Morrisons. He said: “Lidl will gain shoppers at a faster rate than they have for a while because people will continue trading down.”

Hyman suggested that the discounter could overtake Morrisons in as little as 18 months, dealing a significant blow to Morrisons’ private equity owners, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R).

McDonnell said yesterday: “As a discount supermarket, we are in the best possible position to support people through these challenging times, and it’s our absolute priority that we continue to do so.”

NAM Implications:

• As night follows day…
• All it takes is growth faster than rival….
• …growing customer base at rival’s expense…
• …on a platform tailored to post Lockdown.
• Especially when Aldi has proven the point already.