Aldi continues charge into new Aussie supermarket Big Three

While this falls a long way short of the 8.8m customers shopping at Coles or the 9.5 million at Woolworths, Aldi’s long-term gains in terms of market share indicate that the European supermarket chain is on the up and up.

As of December last year, Roy Morgan’s Supermarket Currency report placed Aldi in the top three of supermarkets in terms of market share. 

“Despite the long-standing dominance of Coles and Woolworths, ALDI have shown that it’s not a two-horse race,” said Warren Reid of Roy Morgan. “More importantly, Aldi’s popularity also suggests there are opportunities for other international supermarket giants to successfully enter the Australian grocery market​.

Accounting for 10.3% of all grocery dollars, Aldi surpassed even IGA (9.5%). At 39%, Woolworths still maintains the largest slice of the pie, while Coles continued to improve, achieving its highest market-share proportion since March 2008 at 33.5%. 

“While Aldi’s increase in market share over the last eight years may seem like a slow burn, they’ve actually secured a sizeable chunk of the A$82bn [US$72bn] grocery market. It’s not that Metcash/IGA are any less important to consider, but they haven’t made the same kind of gains over the last few years​.

“Despite Woolworths posting above-average sales in their latest quarter, this hasn’t had any noticeable impact on their market share, as Coles continues to close the gap, and ALDI continues to grow​.”