However, Asda remained the only major supermarket to record a sales drop in the latest Worldpanel figures. The latest Worldpanel figures also showed signs of pressure at Morrisons, with sales rising just 0.9pc in the 12-week period to Aug 10.
Despite these efforts, Asda's market share has continued to slide—from 15.0% in 2021 to just 12.3% today. The latest figures also show that grocery price inflation has climbed to 4.1%, its highest level since early 2024, adding further pressure on consumers and retailers alike.
The UK's third-biggest supermarket dropped £599m into the red in the year to 31 December 2024, before tax payments, down from a £180m profit in 2023, according to accounts for Bellis Finco, the retailer's holding company.
Asda have been accused of 'spying' on customers after rolling out a new initiative to tackle shoplifting. The major supermarket has faced backlash for using live facial recognition cameras.
Sales fell 2.6 per cent to £4.22billion over the period, making it the only grocer to see sales plunge, apart from the Co-op which saw a 3.2 per cent drop. Its market share has fallen from 12.7 to 11.8 per cent in the past year, market researcher Worldpanel said.
This brings the ownership of Asda to 67.5% by TDR Capital, 22.5% by Mohsin Issa, and 10% by Walmart Inc. The transaction is set to complete in Q3 2024. TDR Capital invested in Asda alongside the Issa brothers, and together they took majority ownership of the business in June 2021.
Asda has already made a series of management changes, including a major round of redundancies announced in March. The supermarket folded the management of its IPL sourcing and logistics division into its central management function.
Walmart sold Asda to Zuber and Mohsin Issa and private equity firm TDR Capital in 2021. Since then, Asda has been separating more than 2,500 systems from Walmart, which retains a 10% stake in Asda. The project completed this week, with all stores, food depots and office systems operating on Asda-owned technology.
Consumers have been boycotting retailers and businesses for several reasons, including rollbacks by companies on their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and what some organizers have called corporate greed.
Morrisons faces £701m of finance costs as it continues to battle with high debt repayments in the wake of its £10bn takeover by private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R). The supermarket's debt pile stood at £7bn at the end of last October, down from £8.6bn a year earlier.
Have Asda's sales decline as customers shift to competitors?
Sales have fallen at UK supermarket chain Asda, as customers defect to larger rivals. Asda, the UK's third-largest supermarket chain, has reported a 2.1% drop in like-for-like sales in the first half of the financial year. The decline accelerated in the last quarter, with underlying sales down 5.3% in April-June.
Dozens of Asda workers and a life-size cut out of boss Manjit Dale staged a protest today [Tuesday] outside Asda Bedminster in anger at asset stripping of the supermarket.
Asda has announced it will close seven of its 254 in-store pharmacies at the start of August. Branches will close in Southampton, Seaham, Feltham, Blackburn, Adel, West Bradford and Weston-Super-Mar.
But the UK's most popular supermarket - with the biggest market share - expects profits to be lower next year amid what its chief executive described as an "intensification of competition" in the UK. Tesco's profits rose £299m from a year earlier to £3.128bn despite cutting 400 jobs in January.
Under the joint ownership of the Issa family and TDR, debt levels have gone through the roof. Borrowings now stand at nearly £6bn, leaving Asda saddled with eye-watering interest payments, which have got bigger as the retailer has been forced to rejig its existing debts at ever more punishing interest rates.
Who owns Tesco? Founded by East End market stall holder Jack Cohen, Tesco has been a publicly listed company since 1947 and is a member of the FTSE-100. Its biggest shareholders are London-based Silchester International Investors and Schroder Investment Management and US-head quartered The Vanguard Group.
Asda is now under the majority control of private equity giant TDR Capital after billionaire Zuber Issa sold his shares in the supermarket giant. Funds managed by TDR Capital now hold a 67.5 per cent stake in the Leeds-headquartered company while Zuber's brother Mohsin Issa retains his 22.5 per cent holding.
Average ASDA hourly pay ranges from approximately £12.55 per hour for Sales Assistant to £13.78 per hour for Service Associate. Salary estimated from 450 past and present job postings on Indeed.
Tesco attributed this decision to an increasingly competitive UK grocery industry, stating that it was looking for “more efficient ways of working.” The supermarket's UK Chief Executive, Matthew Barnes, said on the matter, “These are difficult decisions affecting our colleagues, but we believe they are necessary to ...
The Asda equal pay claim is a landmark case involving over 60,000 predominantly female store workers claiming back pay worth up to £20,000 per individual claim (worth up to a total of £1.2 billion). The workers argue they are paid less than their male counterparts in distribution centres for work of equal value.
UK grocer Asda is still too expensive on core and high-volume SKUs, with more than half (56%) of products priced higher than those of Tesco and Aldi, an analysis by Bernstein showed.
Supercentres are our largest stores offering our extended range across food, George and non-food, often supported by partnership offers and an extended range of services such as banks, photo printing specialists and dry cleaners. Milton Keynes is our largest store measuring more than 100,000 sq. ft.
A group of Yorkshire farmers were responsible for writing the first chapter in the history of Asda when they formed Hindell's Dairies in the 1920s. After a successful period which saw them expand and diversify the company was floated in 1949 as Associated Dairies and Farm Stores Ltd.
