French retailer E. Leclerc posted a 1.9% increase in market share in the four-week period from 18 May to 14 June, significantly outperforming its rivals, new data from Kantar has revealed.
According to the data for the P6 period, E. Leclerc now holds 23.3% of the market, with growth largely driven by higher basket size, by as much as 20% on average.
Drive Boost
The retailer has also benefitted from its comprehensive Drive estate, which has seen traffic increase by more than a third (35%), according to Kantar.
E. Leclerc has also sought to capitalise on its growing appeal by increasing its media spend in the period by 161%, Kantar added, boosting its share of voice.
Another retailer to post growth in the period included Les Mousquetaires, which saw its market share rise by 0.5% to 15.7%, with the retailer seeing an 80% increase in the number of online transactions it reported.
Lidl also put in a solid performance, growing by 0.5% to 6.4%, with more shoppers (+310,000) visiting its stores in the period, and a higher average basket size (€24.70). Lidl, too, has increased its marketing spend, mainly on TV advertising.
Rival discounter Aldi, meanwhile, posted a 0.2% increase in share to 2.4%, while Louis Delhaize Group posted a 0.1% increase to 2.8%.
Challenging Times
Challenges are persisting at Carrefour, however, which saw a 0.9% decrease in market share at its hypermarkets division, and a 0.2% drop at its supermarket division, however the grocer's convenience arm rose by 0.2%.
Auchan, too, has had a mixed performance, with its hypermarkets arm seeing a 0.4% decrease in share, and its supermarket arm stable.
With France gradually emerging out of lockdown, shopper spend remains high, growing by 10.3% during the P6 period, according to Kantar.
While traffic to stores was down 6%, shoppers tended to purchase larger baskets, it added.
The fastest growing sales channel was online, which saw market share rise from 6.2% to 8.4%, while proximity retailing also saw a rise (to 6.5% share), driven by larger basket size.
The discount and supermarket channels each posted a 0.1% increase in share, to 10.7% and 24.8% respectively.
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
