Two giants battle in Hungary as well

Two giants and gigantic competition. The battlefield is Europe and to some extent, the whole world. Aldi is present in ten countries in Europe, but it also has stores in Australia and the US. Lidl has stores all over Europe. The discount chain Lidl took over the lead from its rival Aldi in 2007, regarding the number of stores. According to a Nielsen survey, they had 7271 stores in Europe at the end of 2007, while Aldi “only” had 6997. They follow different expansion strategies. Aldi usually opens one store for 25,000 people, while Lidl has stores in almost twice as many countries. Last year, Aldi opened a store practically every day, but Lidl was almost twice as fast. However, in countries where both chains are present, Aldi has a significantly higher market share, with the exception of France. In most European markets Aldi sales showed overall stagnation, with some decrease in revenues per store. Lidl produced growth. According to Tünde Turcsán from Nielsen, the success of Lidl is due to having a high proportion of manufacturers’ brands in its assortment while Aldi focuses on private labels. Furthermore, the Lidl is assortment is expanding so rapidly that this is perceived by consumers as a major difference compered to Aldi. On the other hand, Aldi generally follows a more aggressive price policy.