Highlights
- Asda loses cheapest British supermarket ranking to Tesco for first time in a year, according to Which?
- Market share drops from 12.3 per cent to 11.5 per cent as sales fall 3.7 per cent in 12 weeks to January 25.
- Chairman Allan Leighton's price war strategy fails to stop customer exodus despite profit cuts.
The findings mark a significant setback for Asda chairman Allan Leighton, who launched an aggressive price war last March with a promised "war chest" for price cuts.
Leighton warned the investment would cause a "material hit" to profits but hoped it would revive the struggling supermarket's performance.
Which? found a trolley of 228 items cost £1.45 more at Asda than Tesco when using a Clubcard. Without Clubcard prices, Tesco would have been more expensive, though over 80 per cent of UK households hold the loyalty card.
Separate Worldpanel figures show Asda's sales fell 3.7 per cent in the 12 weeks to January 25 compared with last year.
Market share dropped from 12.3 per cent to 11.5 per cent, though it rose slightly from a record low of 11.4 per cent before Christmas.
Tesco takes lead
Tesco has fought back strongly against Asda's price offensive. Chief executive Ken Murphy said in January that Tesco had "without a doubt, responded very decisively to what Asda announced last year."
The retailer relaunched its blue and white stripe Value branding and pushed through extensive price reductions.
Tesco's strategy proved successful, with Worldpanel data showing it captured 28.7 per cent market share over Christmas—its highest in over a decade. Sales rose 4.4 per cent compared with last year.
Leighton has implemented several redundancy rounds since taking over in late 2024, including in-store managers and hundreds of IT workers.
Asda blamed poor performance on a botched IT upgrade called Project Future. An Asda spokesman told The Telegraph that Asda remained "the lowest-priced supermarket every month in 2025 on the Which? big trolley comparison."
