Australian supermarkets continue to dominate alcohol market

November 14, 2018
Food & Beverage
The trend towards supermarket domination of the alcohol retail sector continued apace over the year to September, with Woolworths Group-owned outlets picking up 250,000 customers and hotel bottle-shops losing virtually the same amount, at 240,000, according to the latest survey data from Roy Morgan.
Woolworths Group and Coles Group continue to dominate the market-share league table, with 5.83 million and 2.41 million customers respectively.
That gives Woolworths Group market penetration of 61.8 per cent and market share in dollar terms of 52.1 per cent.
By comparison, Coles Group has market penetration of 25.5 per cent and market share of 15.4 per cent.
Woolworths Group brands Dan Murphy’s and BWS both increased their customer bases over the 12 months to September, by 4.0 per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively.
Coles Group’s brands saw more mixed results – Liquorland customer numbers declined by 13.1 per cent over the year, with 1st Choice Liquor virtually unchanged and Vintage Cellars growing its customer base by 18.5 per cent.
These are the latest figures from the Roy Morgan Alcohol Retail Currency Report, based on data collected via in-depth, personal interviews conducted face-to-face with more than 50,000 Australians per annum in their own homes, including more than 7,000 who had purchased packaged alcohol within four weeks of being interviewed.
Hotel bottle-shops have continued to lose customers. The research shows a number of drivers of buying behaviour in this market, including proximity to other shops, low prices, an easily browseable range and good special offers.
Roy Morgan’s Single Source survey data can help retailers across the sector understand who their customers are and where they live, work and shop.
The Alcohol Retail Currency Report looks at long and short-term trends for the market size and share (in dollars), customer numbers and cross visitation and overall purchase channel types as well as looking in-depth at major supermarket retailers.