Chart of the Day: Sheng Siong and FairPrice are eating up the supermarket pie

Within five years, Sheng Siong took up 18.9% whilst FairPrice ate up 56% of the market.

This chart from Maybank Kim Eng shows that in terms of market share, Sheng Siong and NTUC FairPrice have been slowly growing from 2012 to 2017.

NTUC FairPrice’s market share has been growing for five years steady. In 2012, it only took up 50.8%, but then it leapt by nearly 6ppt to 56% in 2017. It continues to be the largest supermarket owner in Singapore. It is run by the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), the apex of trade unions in the island.

For Sheng Siong, the largest growth occurred from 2014 to 2017 when its market share leapt 1.2ppt to 18.9%. In 2012, it only took up 16.9% of the market. This was reflected in its profits, which climbed 11.4% to $69.79m in 2017. The company attributed this to the opening of its new stores, which contributed the most to its revenue of $829.88m.

Although Sheng Siong was still only the third-largest supermarket brand in Singapore in 2017, it has closed its gap quite dramatically with Dairy Farm since 2013.

Meanwhile, Dairy Farm’s market share has been declining for five years steady. In 2012, it still had 23.9% of the market, but in 2017, its share is already below a fifth of the market at 19.5%.

Maybank KE said Dairy Farm’s sales have been declining for two of its four supermarket formats: Cold Storage and Giant Super. As a response, its new CEO Ian McLeod has shut down its lossmaking stores, because he believes their performance will not improve. The CEO now wants to focus on “building up capability” in order to enhance growth.