Asda to invest £300m in price cuts to entice shoppers
ASDA has launched a £300m price investment as it seeks to wrestle some momentum from its competitors in the price-focused supermarket sector.
The story of 2014 was about the continued rise of the discount retailers Aldi and Lidl, as they succeeded in gaining mainstream acceptance from consumers which led to increased market share.
Aldi and Lidl have reached a record combined market share with 8.6% of the market, up 1.5 percentage points over the past year.
Although Christmas trading figures have not yet been released, analysis by Kantar Worldpanel showed Asda was the best-performing of the traditional big four supermarkets in the 12 weeks to December 7. The Leeds-based retailer’s market share stood at 16.7%, just ahead of Sainsbury’s.
Today’s announcement that it will invest £300m in price cuts in the first quarter of 2015 – its biggest ever single price investment – is part of a five-year strategy to invest £1bn in lowering prices and £250m in quality.
Barry Williams, chief merchandising officer for food at Asda said: “We invest in price year round but we’re kicking off January with our Biggest Ever Rollback – spending £300m to bring more value across our stores and online on the products customers buy week in, week out. We’re going further than ever before, rolling back those every day, can’t live without items at a bigger percentage than we’ve ever been able to do previously.”
