Tesco sales growth year-on-year in Great Britain 2015-2020

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. How covid-19 will change this picture remains to be seen.

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

In 2018, Tesco operates 3,754 stores in the UK. However, the growth in store numbers the company experienced in the early 2010s has stagnated in recent years. In 2018, the company made a revenue of roughly 45 billion British pounds in the UK, approximately four times the revenue that the company makes abroad.