Aldi Group stepped up the battle for Britain’s discount grocery shoppers with plans to almost double its number of stores and expand its UK headquarters.
On the day Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc showed that it’s fighting back against the encroachment of the budget chain and fellow German discounter Lidl, Aldi said it expects to boost its number of UK outlets to 1,000 from about 530 by 2021. The company will also spend £70 million on extending its central England base. It will lease a second building at the site in Atherstone until the extension is complete in 2017, according to a statement.
Aldi and Lidl have shaken up the UK grocery market, prompting the likes of Morrison, Tesco Plc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Asda to cut prices. Morrison, which plans to lower prices by £1 billion over three years to win back customers, said today that it expects the first benefits of its actions to be seen toward the end of the second half.
Aldi and Lidl have taken 1.6 percentage points in market share from Britain’s four big supermarkets, which also includes J Sainsbury Plc, in the last year, Kantar Worldpanel said on 27 August. Their combined market share now stands at 8.4 per cent, up from 6.8 per cent a year ago. Aldi said it opened 42 UK stores last year and plans to add a further 54 outlets in 2014. “In addition to opening new stores, we are making strong investment in our behind the scenes operations,” Roman Heini, Aldi’s joint group managing director, said in the statement.
Bloomberg News edited by ESM
