A bad pass for e.leclercler? Used by the inflationary wave, the brand has continued to obtain a new market share in recent years. But the machine stopped in the spring: 24%, the E.Ecerc lost 0.2 market share in value during the fifth period of the year (from April 21 to May 18, 2025) compared to the previous year, according to data by the panelist Kantar Worldpanel. For e.lecler stores, such a decrease is not usual, since the brand has dominated its competitors for some time.
This agreement confirms an earlier alert: the E.CELCERCER Group had sold 0.1 market share (23.7%) during the third period of the year (from February 24 to March 23). Or, at that time, an inflection observed for the first time in three years, reports the specialized magazine LSA CONSO, which recalls that the brand had previously accumulated forty periods of increased increase. E.CELCERCER had reversed the trend during the following period (+0.3 points during the fourth period of the year, 24.1%), before registering a new decrease during the fifth annual period.
“If the Internet continues to function very well with an increase in orders of more than 10%, stores record the loss of 37,300 buyers” during the fifth period of the year, observes Gaëlle Le Floch, director of studies at Kantar Worldpanel, with LSA Conse.
Inflation deceleration
For e.leclercler, the comparison base is very high, and the brand eliminates a high pedestal. Its stores can be attributed to very good performances from the launch of the health crisis: vigorized by the inflationary crisis, they have won hundreds of thousands of additional customers in France, convinced by an unique prize in the distribution of French masses. His media that represent Michel-édouard Leclerc, incarnation of the brand in the eyes of the general public, had become a symbol of low prices.
According to Kantar Woldpanel, the e.leclerc group has registered progressions greater than or equal to 1 market share point during a dozen successive periods between spring 2023 and spring of 2024, it is difficult to do better when inflation sets foot on the brake. Less worred by prices, consumers are also a little less faithful to this or that brand. In addition, certain competitive brands, in particular, intermartché and super/Hyper U, have led real efforts in prices, reducing the tariff gap in the market.
Beyond the slowdown in inflation, it is also the market itself that has changed its face.
“The recomposition of the panorama of mass distribution in France has promoted the market share” of its main competitors, says Frank Rosenthal, a commercial marketing expert, with BFM businesses. “Four players, regardless of natural growth, have benefited from external growth” in their store parks, underlines, evoking the many acquisitions that have interrupted the world of tricolor masses distribution in the last two years.
The strong financial difficulties of the Casino Group forced him to separate from almost all his supermarkets and hypermarkets for the benefit of his competitors, largely intertim and Auchan. The Carrefour group, meanwhile, had its hands in sixty Cora Hyperignmarkets, which weighed a little more than 2% market share, passing the brand in its own colors. The Schiever regional group, recently joined the U Cooperative, who thus recovered a dozen Auchan hypermarkets and one hundred Bi1 and Maximarché supermarkets.
“Vulnerable brands”
In addition, “when you have vulnerable brands, it is easier to take market share,” adds Frank Rosenthal, taking the example of Casseelant Groupe casino, but also from Carrefour and Auchan. Stimulated by price setting efforts and market concentration, competition has revived its last months and “it is more difficult today than before gaining points,” he continues, even if this does not yet shake the undisputed place of the solid leader in the hands of E.Eccer Supermarkets.
E. Reclacerr “no longer wins market share”, which should promote the brand to carry out “new prices actions”, recently observed the American Bank JPMorgan in a note dedicated to the Carrefour group. Guest this Thursday morning at BFMTV-RMC, Michel -éduard Leclerc promoted “promotions” of fuels during summer holidays. “It is always necessary […]. We can imagine everything and we have many ideas in mind, “he said.
Source: BFM TV
