Aldi celebrates £1bn Christmas sales bonanza

AlDI had its best ever week in the run-up to Christmas as it piled pressure on the Big Four supermarkets.

The budget chain saw sales rise more than 10pc in the week before Christmas, compared with a year earlier.

And it sold almost £1bn of goods in December.

In a sign that customers are no longer just buying the basics from the German supermarket chain, the biggest increase in demand came from its luxury exquisite and Specially Selected product lines.

exquisite includes items such as a vintage Christmas pudding with sherry and cognac, prosecco panettone and a ‘jewelled pie’ of pork, chicken breast and pate covered with glace fruits.

Aldi is aiming to have 1,200 stores by 2025 and – along with fellow German firm lidl – has gobbled up market share in an industry once dominated by the big four players Asda, Tesco, morrisons and Sainsbury’s. The Germans have a combined 13.2pc share of the market, according to data firm Kantar Worldpanel. Aldi has more than doubled its share since 2010.

Retail analyst Richard Hyman said: ‘Aldi is a phenomenal retailer and it’s still often underrated. people are too hung up on the idea that its success is all about being cheap.

‘A lot of the growth over the past couple of years has been about extending the quality ranges, and Aldi’s offer now compares very favourably with the upmarket retailers.’

However, it is hard to compare the grocer’s sales figures directly with rivals because as a private foreign firm owned by the billionaire Albrecht family, it does not have to report extensive financial results.

By contrast, some of its rivals are listed on the stock exchange and subject to far stricter accounting rules which make it harder for them to bury bad news. morrisons is updating investors today, Sainsbury’s tomorrow and Tesco on Thursday.

patrick o’Brien, an analyst at Global Data Retail, said: ‘Some extremely selective Christmas reporting from Aldi. It issued growth figures for just one week, but a year ago it revealed growth for all of December.’

meanwhile, Aldi’s years of breakneck expansion could finally be coming to an end.

Kien Tan of pwC said: ‘It’s going to be harder for them to keep growing.’