Tesco sales growth year-on-year in Great Britain 2015-2021

In 2015 and for much of 2016, Tesco saw decreasing sales before the company managed to stabilize and entered a growth phase towards April 2019. The company managed to hold onto small growth numbers for the first half of 2019. However, sales were once again in decline for multiple months in a row as of February 2020. The pandemic outbreak caused the surge in the sales value, which were up by 7.2 percent in the 12 weeks ending April 19, 2020.This boost in sales continued throughout 2020 and Tesco's sales peaked in July 2020. As of 12 weeks ending on November 28, 2021, Tesco's sales dropped for the first time since March 2020.

A market leader under attack

Tesco’s is the biggest of the so called big four, a group of Supermarkets including Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons that dominate the UK market. Its position as market leader is currently under attack, especially by the German discounters Aldi and Lidl. In April of 2019, a merger, which would have cost the company the number one spot on the British grocery market, of Sainsbury’s and Asda failed.

Tesco in numbers

Tesco operates just over 4,000 stores in the UK. The company made a revenue of roughly 53.1 billion British pounds in the UK and Republic of Ireland in 2020/21, approximately 14 times the revenue that the company make in Central Europe.