Supermarket shares have come under pressure as new figures show them continuing to lose market share to the discounters.
For the first time more than half of Britain's households shopped in Aldi or Lidl, according to Kantar Worldpanel's grocery share data for the 12 weeks to 8 December. Some 50.1% shopped in a discount retailer compared with 46.1% a year ago. Chris Longbottom, director at Kantar Worldpanel, said:
Aldi now boasts a record 4.0% of the grocery market having increased its share for nearly every 12-week period since the end of 2010. Lidl retains its record share of 3.1% which it reached during the summer.
The news has sent J Sainsbury shares down 10.2p to 385.3p, Tesco 4.25p lower to 326.75p, and Morrisons off 2.5p to 261.9. The other big four supermarket, Asda, is owned by Wal-Mart.
Over the period the overall grocery market grew by 2.8% while Sainsbury was up 1.8%, Tesco 0.4%, Asda 0.6% and Morrisons 0.8%.
