Big four European supermarkets under pressure
German discounters transform British supermarkets and they are poised to keep on growing
London — German-owned discount supermarkets Aldi and Lidl are ploughing ahead with a rapid expansion in Britain and are on course to grab more market share from the traditional big-four players. A top Aldi executive told Reuters it aimed to have 1,000 UK stores by 2022, up from 762. Lidl said it saw potentially 1,200 to 1,500 stores in the long term, up from 710. Meanwhile, store openings at market leader Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons have slowed to a trickle. They are shedding thousands of jobs so they can save money and better compete with the discounters. Aldi and Lidl’s cut-price model has turned them into two of the world’s biggest retailers. They have expanded abroad as growth stagnated at home. Aldi launched in Britain in 1994 and Lidl in 1990 and they have changed the shape of the UK grocery market. But their profits have fallen and traditional retailers have questioned whether the model is sustainable. The discounters have little presence online and could face comp...
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