Aldi posts huge pre tax profit rise

Discount supermarket chain Aldi continues to go from strength to strength as it posted a huge rise in its full-year profits.

The company, which has been growing at an exponential rate in the past 12 months, recorded a 65.2 per cent rise in its pre-tax profits to £260.9 million for the year to December 31st, 2013. Turnover had grown to £5.27 billion, a 35.7 per cent increase, while its market share grew from 3.1 per cent to four per cent over the course of the year, according to Kantar Worldpanel.

Both Aldi and Lidl have been the success story of the supermarket sector over the past year. The rise of these discount firms has put increased pressure on the more traditional names such as Asda, Tesco and Morrisons. Both Asda and Morrisons have made redundancies over the past 12 months while Tesco has launched its own inquiry after it overstated its guidance for half-year profits by £250 million.

The poor performance from the major supermarkets has allowed Aldi and Lidl to gain significant ground on its competitors. For the 12 weeks to September 2014, Aldi has improved substantially and is only three percentage points behind Waitrose in terms of market share.

Roman Heini, Aldi's UK group managing director, said: "We keep prices constantly low while keeping product quality consistently high, which is exactly what shoppers want. They had become used to thinking you have to pay more for better products. We've shown them this doesn't have to be the case."

Aldi has already unveiled its plans for the coming year. In the past year alone, it has opened 42 new stores across the UK and is due to launch a further 54 in 2014 with a further 60 to 65 planned for 2015. Once all opened, it would take the total number of Aldi stores to 600 in the UK.

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