Kesko only grocer to lose market share in 2021

After really successful couple of years, Kesko’s market share has turned back to decline. From 2011 Kesko’s market share declined all the way to 2018. The market share did jump up in 2016 as Kesko acquired Suomen Lähikauppa, but the decline continued after the acquisition.

In 2021 Kesko’s market dropped by 0,3%-points, whereas S-Group, Lidl & the others (probably Tokmanni) group grew each by 0,1%-point. The overall grocery market grew by 3,1%.

Lidl led the way with 4,2% growth. This highlights the growing importance of price. It is also highlighted by the fact that the best performing chain for both S-Group and Kesko were the hypermarkets. Prisma was the fastest growing chain in the market with 4,7% growth.

With regard to Lidl’s growth, this was the first time since 2018 when Lidl was able to grow its market share. It will be very interesting to see how that continues as the inflation starts to pinch the consumer. Both Prisma and Lidl will most probably continue to take market share.

When will Lidl pass 10% market share?

Online grocery was another success story in the Finnish grocery market. The online channel grew by +35,8% (on top of really rapid growth in 2020).

The online growth was mainly driven by S-kaupat, which grabbed market share from K-ruoka.

S-kaupat market share grew from about 37% to about 44%, whereas K-ruoka declined from 52% to 45%.

The growth of S-kaupat (mainly through Prisma) is one important reason why Prisma grew so much more rapidly than the market in 2021. Prisma’s revenue in total grew from 2020 to 2021 by 155 million €. Based on our estimates, S-kaupat grew by 90 million €. Majority of that growth came form Prisma.

Online market was in total worth 536 million € representing 2,6% of all groceries sold in Finland. It will be very interesting to see how the online growth continues as Oda has arrived to challenge K-ruoka and S-kaupat in the dominance of online grocery retailing.