• In the UK, the Grocer reports that “according to new figures from Kantar Worldpanel, Tesco’s share of the video, music and games market crashed from 11.3% in the first three months of 2011 to 9% in the same period this year.” Walmart-owned Asda Group, with a 9.3 percent market share, now is the UK’s leading supermarket retailer of entertainment products, the story says.
The Kantar analysis suggests that “the decline was primarily a result of Tesco pulling away from deep discounts on new entertainment launches – particularly movies – in the first quarter of this year.”
The Kantar analysis suggests that “the decline was primarily a result of Tesco pulling away from deep discounts on new entertainment launches – particularly movies – in the first quarter of this year.”
- KC's View:
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I have a couple of reactions to this story.
One is that in some ways, I wouldn’t worry too much about this if I were Tesco. After all, the simple reality is that in the long term, nobody is going to go to any physical store to buy this kind of stuff. It is all going to be ordered and downloaded over the internet, so I’d avoid making major investments in a dying business sector.
Second, it strikes me that Tesco may be suffering the same fate as Walmart these days...and may rewrite the popular phrase this way: Too big not to fail. These won't be fast failures and they aren’t even inevitable. But you have to wonder...
