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According to statistics published by Nielsen this week, K Group’s share of the Finnish grocery trade market totalled 33.7% in 2024 (34.3% in 2023). Although the market share declined by 0.6 ppt year-on-year, the decrease was less prominent than in 2023 (-0.9%).  

In online grocery trade, K Group’s market share exceeded 40%. Total market growth for online grocery was 10.8%, while K Group outpaced this with a growth rate of 13.5 %.

Reversing the market share trend is an important objective for Kesko's grocery trade. In line with the division’s strategy, we continue to focus on three specific areas:

Updating and expanding our store network: Finnish customers are concentrating their grocery shopping increasingly in bigger stores – hypermarkets and supermarkets – where sales have grown. The trend in K Group market share continued to be impacted by the significant investments made by competitors to open new larger stores, while the impact of K Group investments in its store network will become visible gradually. Kesko is set open several new hypermarket-sized stores over the next few years.

The total number of K Group grocery stores decreased by 80 in 2024, partly because Kesko withdrew from the grocery operations at Neste K service stations during the year, which had a negative impact of 0.2 percentage points on the overall market share.

Improving price competitiveness: Grocery customers continue to be very price-driven. Kesko and K Group launched an extensive price programme in January, cutting prices on more than 1,200 everyday staples across the three grocery store chains. The programme has been positively received by customers, and is proceeding according to plans. At the same time, we have continued to focus on the great offers K Group stores are known for.

Further elevating quality in the stores: K Group is the quality leader in Finnish grocery trade, with competitive advantages that include extensive selections and a unique retailer-run business model that enables high-quality service and the development of store-specific business ideas based on local customer data. Digitally-assisted services enable an increasingly individual customer experience, and relevant personalised benefits are very important.

The measures related to the price programme and changes to the store network have a long-term focus. The investments in store sites will be reflected in K Group sales more towards the end of the ongoing strategy period (2024-2026). The investments in store sites and price levels will have a slight effect on the division’s profitability over the next few years, but operating profit development is expected to be stable. The operating margin target for the ongoing strategy period is clearly above 6% in grocery trade.

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