Supermarket chain Asda saw sales fall further over Christmas, becoming the worst performing supermarket for the second quarter running.

The chain, who released their results yesterday, were hit by a 5.8 percent fall in like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks to January 1, and a fall of 4.7 percent over the year as a whole. It’s parent company, the US super-chain Walmart, also reported a 7.9 percent fall in net income for the fourth quarter – something that may well continue as German rivals Aldi expand into the US next month.

Asda’s president and CEO Andy Clarke said 2015 had been a “difficult year”, and conceded that the UK retail market was undergoing “significant and permanent structural change”. The latest set of results were a percentage point worse than those released in the second quarter of 2015, which Clarke labelled the chain’s rock bottom.

The British grocery market has been undergoing a significant change for some year now, with budget rivals Lidl and Aldi stealing market share from the Big Four with their cheaper own brands products. Both Tesco and Morrisons performed better than expected over the Christmas period, but Asda remains in steep decline and have since pledged to keep their prices no more than 5 percent above discounters in an attempt to claw back market share.

19/02/2016