June 28, 2007 | posted by Michael Baxter in IABN |

Tesco’s iron grip on the supermarket sector loosed ever so slightly over the last three months.
According to the TNS Worldpanel grocery market share figures, for the 12 weeks ending 17th June 2007, Sainsbury’s and Asda both enjoyed higher percentage growth rates than Tesco.

But, some of the much smaller guys did even better, with Iceland, Lidl, Aldi and other freezer centres all enjoying double digit growth.

Tesco now controls 31.6 per cent of the supermarket sector, with Asda at number two with 16.6 per cent and Sainsbury’s with 16.2 per cent.

But while the big three could only manage growth of 4 per cent, in the case of Tesco and 6 per cent with its two main rivals, Iceland, which is currently the UK’s 8th most popular supermarket, saw ten per cent growth, Lidl (11th spot) enjoyed 14 per cent growth, Aldi (12th spot) managed ten per cent and other freezer centres (14th) grew by an impressive 22 per cent.

The UK’s number four, Morrison, seems to have seen stability return. It grew by 5 five per cent, in fifth spot, Kwik Save continued to implode - down 67 per cent, and at number six, Waitrose, with 3.9 per cent market share, grew by 8 per cent.