Mercadona Extends Dominance In Spanish Grocery Sector

Data from Worldpanel by Numerator reveals that Mercadona achieved a 27.3% market share in the first eight months of the year, marking a 0.7-percentage-point increase from the previous year. This growth was fuelled by its ability to capture larger shopping baskets and a high shopper penetration, which now stands at 91.3%.

Mercadona’s success is particularly pronounced in its core region of Levante, where its market share reached a record 34.1% – a gain of 1.9 points.

According to Bernardo Rodilla, retail client director at Worldpanel by Numerator, Mercadona is filling baskets with “strategic categories”, such as prepared meals (+1.3%), eggs (+0.3%), and fish and seafood (+0.4%).

“Mercadona’s performance leads us to wonder how far it can continue to grow,” Rodilla commented. “It’s getting shoppers to avoid other chains, and it’s doing so in strategic categories.”

Lidl On The Rise

While Mercadona extends its lead, discounter Lidl is also rapidly gaining ground, emerging as the second-highest growth performer. Lidl increased its market share by 0.5 percentage points, to reach 6.9%, firmly holding third place nationally and intensifying its pursuit of Carrefour, in second place.

Lidl’s shopper penetration also rose by one point, to 61.9%, driven by its appeal to families with children and expansion across more categories.

Conversely, Carrefour saw its market share drop by one percentage point, to 9%, through August. This decline is primarily attributed to a 3% loss of shoppers at its hypermarkets – which was not fully offset by gains in its supermarket format – and a 2.2-point fall in shopper penetration, to 57.1%.

Other Players

Elsewhere, Eroski Group  saw its market share increase by 0.1 percentage point, to 4.3%, regaining ground in regions like the Basque Country and Catalonia.

Dia, having completed its transformation plan to focus on proximity and private-label development (now 65.3% of sales), gained 0.2 percentage points, to reach a 3.7% market share.

Consum maintained a 3.6% market share, while Alcampo saw a decline of 0.3 points, to 2.8%, due to a subdued hypermarket performance.

Aldi attracted the most new shoppers in the first eight months of the year, gaining 1.8 percentage points and approaching a 1.9% market share – a 0.2-percentage-point increase from 2024.

While overall spending in mainstream supermarkets advanced by 3.5%, in volume terms, it only increased by 0.9% in value, primarily driven by a 5.4% increase in household consumption. This disparity between sales value and volume indicates that consumers are making smaller, more frequent shopping trips and visiting a greater number of different chains per trip.

On average, Spaniards now visit 6.5 different supermarket chains annually, with the percentage of shoppers visiting more than one store on the same day rising to 13.6%.