The German supermarket chains hit Dunnes Stores and Tesco, according to figures from polling firm Kantar Worldpanel Ireland.
Aldi’s market share in the 12 weeks through January 5 rose by 20% while Lidl was up 12%. They have a combined market share of 13.5%.
Tesco’s market share dropped by more than 6% and Dunnes’ fell by just under 1%, though both chains still account for well over half of Ireland's grocery sales.
According to Kantar, the discount chains benefited from running sales vouchers in newspapers in the run up to Christmas.
The other surprising Christmas winner was SuperValu, where sales rose by 1.3%, lifting its market share to 20.1%.
“Christmas was a bumper season for SuperValu as it attracted 43,000 more households to come and shop over the holidays,” said David Berry, the commercial director at Kantar Worldpanel.
“Alcoholic drinks are an important part of the Christmas shop and SuperValu has grown its take home sales by 10% in this category, which has helped it perform ahead of the market.”
According to Kantar the price of groceries are coming down. Grocery inflation was 2.9% over the Christmas period, down from 3.4%, as consumers saw lower prices from the so-called “vegetable wars”.
