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Aldi is aiming to have more stores than Sainsbury’s across the UK, in an expansion plan that targets London and Home Counties shoppers.
The German discounter said it was now planning to have 1,500 shops across the UK, compared to 1,000 currently. The new target is up from its earlier goal of 1,200 stores, which it was aiming to hit by 2025.
Aldi did not say when it hopes to hit 1,500 stores, but said it was looking to open the stores as quickly as possible. It opened its 1,000th store on Thursday in Woking.
If it reaches its 1,500-store target, Aldi would have more UK shops than Sainsbury’s, suggesting a major ambition to propel itself up the ranks of the largest grocers in Britain.
Sainsbury’s – Britain’s second biggest supermarket by market share – has 600 supermarkets and around 800 convenience stores. Aldi is currently the fourth largest grocer in the UK, with a 10.2pc market share, behind Asda which holds 13.7pc of the market.
Giles Hurley, Aldi’s UK and Ireland chief executive, told The Telegraph there was “every reason to believe” that the discounter will continue growing sales and moving up the ranks, adding: “Indeed, in some categories, when you look at volumes, we’re already the second largest player in the UK.”
He said Aldi was targeting areas where it did not have stores, including in London and the South East, where its market share is lower than elsewhere in the UK.
Mr Hurley said: “We’ve always said we want to satisfy demand. We know at the moment that Aldi is more popular than ever but a third of British consumers aren’t able to shop with us. So there’s a huge opportunity for us to serve more customers in more places.”
The higher target comes after a boom in demand for Aldi over the past year, with 1.1m new customers visiting the discounter in the past 12 months as they battle to find the cheapest prices during the cost of living crunch. Both Aldi and Lidl have enjoyed sales growth of more than 20pc over the past year.
Rivals have suggested that the pair are growing sales so quickly because they are inflating their prices faster than traditional stores.
However, Mr Hurley said customers were not assessing percentage price rises when they were shopping, and “actually think in pounds and pennies”.
“The reality is you have to look at our starting price. Because we’re a discounter and our prices are much lower, as a percentage our price rises may appear to be higher.”
However, he said that was “misleading and that’s not not how customers shop”. Both Aldi and Lidl consistently come out as the cheapest for groceries in surveys from Which?.