Online declining at ICA for the first time in years

Stores have become the growth driver for ICA Sweden after a couple of slower quarters. The growth of stores was driven by the hypermarkets (ICA Maxi +1,6 %, like for like only 0,9 %) and especially the convenience stores (ICA Nära +3,8 % like for like growth)

The online business saw a -0,8 % decline. This is the first decline for online business since the start of 2017 when ICA started reporting the online figures. The decline was said to have resulted from a big growth the year before (+124 % in Q3/2020). That is not the whole explanation. Last quarter ICA was still able to maintain a proper growth of 27 % for the online business despite a +148 % growth during the previous year.

Q3 is traditionally the most difficult quarter for the online business. During the summer people buy less from online and it’s share tends jump significantly to Q4 and also Q1.

Compared to the market and the main competitor ICA’s performance was mixed. Overall ICA grew faster than the market (1,2 % vs 1,6 %).

However in online ICA lost market share as the market grew by 3 % while ICA was declining slightly. Compared to Axfood, Axfood was able to grow slightly faster than ICA (2,2 % vs 1,6 %).