The French hypermarket sector continues its steady decline, dropping by 80 basis points year on year in the fourth four-week trading period of the year (P04 2019), according to the latest market share data from Kantar France.
This is the worst year-on-year performance for the hypermarket sector since the last period of 2018 (P13 2018).
In fact, over the past year, the segment has only posted a positive performance once – a ten-basis-point gain at the start of this year (P01 2019).
Taking advantage of this are the online (+41 basis points) and supermarket (+34 basis points) channels, while the discounters (+3 basis points) and convenience (+1 basis point) segments are broadly stable, the data revealed.
The period saw a slowdown in spending by French households, to 0.8%, Kantar reported, however, there is a calendar effect to consider, given the timing of Easter.
Retailer Performance
The data shows that Carrefour has closed the gap between it and market leader E.Leclerc, with 20.4% market share to Leclerc's 21.1% share (the distance between the two was 140 basis points just a month ago).
According to Kantar, Carrefour's marginally improved performance was due to the performance of Carrefour Market and Carrefour Drive.
Third-placed Intermarché holds 14.8% market share, reporting a 20-basis-point gain on the same period last year – the best performance of all the major grocers.
Groupe Casino holds 11.1% share, however, this is down 40 basis points on the same period last year, with its Géant hypermarket business seeing a decline, as well as Leader Price.
Système U also holds 11.1%, posting a ten-basis-point gain, while Auchan is on 10.1%.
Lidl, which hit 6.0% market share in the period, posted the strongest growth of any retailer in the study, with a 40-basis-point gain on the same period last year. According to Kantar Worldpanel, the banner has attracted 600,000 new buyers over the four-week period, while advertising investment is also up 15% over the period.
Rival Aldi remains stable, on 2.2% market share, meanwhile.
Analyst Viewpoint
Commenting on the market share data, Bruno Monteyne of Bernstein Research said, “It would appear that Leclerc lost out as a result of Carrefour's stronger trading this period, gaining just two basis points of market share: -38bps MoM.
“Leclerc has had a solid last few months, whilst Carrefour has had a horrible time. In the last six periods, Leclerc has gained, on average, 29 basis points of share, whilst Carrefour Group and hypers have lost, on average, 42 basis points and 26 basis points of share, respectively,” Monteyne added.
This period, however, saw a more “stable picture” for Carrefour, he continued, adding that he wanted “to see consecutive periods of this kind of trend to warrant optimism. We wonder if Easter timings disrupted the trend we have seen in the previous six periods, i.e. Leclerc might benefit more than Carrefour in Easter periods, which did not fall in this period but did last year.”
© 2019 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.
