Coles puts heat on Woolworths with strong sales growth
Coles continues to dominate Woolworths in the supermarket wars, eclipsing its distracted arch-rival’s quarterly sales growth.
Coles Group’s supermarket sales revenue grew twice as fast as Woolworths’ in the first quarter of the financial year, but Woolworths remains the largest player.
Coles said on Thursday supermarket sales rose 4.8 per cent to $9.97 billion in the 13 weeks to September 28.
By comparison, Woolworths’ Australian retail sales rose just 2.1 per cent to $13.9 billion in the 14 weeks to 5 October.
Coles has also taken market share from Woolworths with a 7 per cent sales increase in 2024/25 compared to Woolworths’ 4 per cent sales increase.
“The really pleasing sentiment for us right now is that we have strength in overall sales,” Coles Group CEO Leah Weckert told reporters on Thursday.
He particularly touched on the performance of non-food products such as his own brand of baby diapers and baby wipes.
“These represent fantastic quality as well as really great value for customers,” Ms Weckert said.
E-commerce supermarket sales rose 27.9 percent to $1.3 billion, a record 13.3 percent of Coles’ overall supermarket sales.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Toner said Coles continues to outperform Woolworths.
But he said it would become harder towards the end of the year to compare with the benefit Coles received a year ago from industrial action at Woolworths’ distribution centers last December.
Coles’ Liquorland business did not fare as well, with sales falling 1.4 per cent to $842 million.
“The liquor market is still tough,” Ms. Weckert said.
“Customers are still looking for value and limiting consumption while managing the overall family budget, but we are really pleased with the results we are seeing from the launch of Simply Liquorland.”
The rollout includes the conversion of all Coles liquor stores into Liquorlands.
“We think that puts us in a good position from a future perspective where the cost of living becomes less of a focus for families and families start to have a little more fun and some of the behavior is reversed.”
Coles converted a further 60 of its Vintage Cellars and First Choice Liquor Market stores into Liquorlands during the quarter, bringing its total number of conversions to 112.
It is planned to transform all 160 such stores by the end of the year.
New tobacco laws and the growth of the black market have meant Coles’ tobacco sales have fallen by 57 per cent compared to the same period the previous year.
Supermarket price inflation has slowed; food prices rose 1.2 percent compared to 1.5 percent in the previous quarter.
Coles said a plentiful supply of fruit and vegetables, including avocados, tomatoes and capsicum, had helped keep prices down, while beef and lamb prices had risen.
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