Willy’s and Lidl driving growth in Swedish groceries

Similarly to many other Western markets, price-driven retailers have outgrown other grocers lately. Market leader ICA was the big winner during the pandemic. Since the pandemic (and before it), Axfood has outgrown ICA. Axfood's growth is coming from its price-focused Willy's chain.

The German discounter Lidl has grown fastest between 2018 & 2021. However, Lidl is growing from a relatively low base. Recently the co-operative chain Coop has introduced a price fighting chain, Xtra, which is also growing rapidly.

ICA saw its online sales multiply in 2020 and 2021. In 2022 online sales have declined. Despite the decline, online revenues are still significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels. ICA's online sales are roughly double the online revenues during the four quarters before the pandemic (Q1/2020-Q2/2019).

Illustrative of the difficulties of ICA is the growth of ICA sales compared to the market growth. During the ten quarters since Q1/2020, ICA has outgrown the market only twice.

In the meantime, Willy's has grown, especially after the pandemic. In the last quarter, Willy's grew by a whopping 13,1%. The growth is driven mainly by like-for-like growth of 11,2%. The increase in sales was even more impressive as Willy's was also able to improve its margins (from 4,6% to 5,1%).