Tesco and Sainsbury lead in growth stakes

The latest TNS Grocery market share figures for the 12 weeks ending 4 December 2005 have been released. Edward Garner, Communications Director, TNS Superpanel, comments: "Tesco continues to post double-digit growth to bring the share to another record of 30.6% on the run-up to Christmas.

Sainsbury is also keeping up its current momentum growing ahead of the market for the tenth successive period and lifting its share from 15.6% a year ago to 15.9% in the latest period.

Now that the Safeway disposals have ceased, the overall Morrisons share is starting to stabilise – the year-on-year decline of 8% is the lowest seen for a year and the share of 11.3% is largely unchanged for the last 5 periods.

This trading background means that the "softer" retail targets we saw a year ago no longer exist and, as a result, Asda is finding it hard to maintain its historical growth. The share has declined from 16.8% a year go to 16.5% and the 2% growth rate is behind the market average."