is a chain of
Supermarkets in the
United Kingdom offering food, clothing and general merchandise products. It became a subsidiary of
Wal-Mart in 1999, and is currently the second largest chain in the UK after
Tesco .
ASDA is Wal-Mart's largest overseas subsidiary, accounting for almost half of the company's international sales. ASDA's precise turnover is not disclosed, but based on market share it is thought to be in excess of £15 billion. As of January 2006, there were 21 ASDA/Wal-Mart Supercentres, 243 ASDA Superstores, 37 ASDA Smaller/town centres, 5 ASDA Living stores, 10 Georges, and 24 depots (distribution centres). ASDA employs 150,000 "colleagues" (90,000 part-time, 60,000 full-time). The company is also engaged in property development through its subsidiary company, ''Gazeley Properties Limited''.
As a wholly owned division of Wal-Mart, ASDA isn't required to declare quarterly or half-yearly earnings. It submits full accounts to
Companies House each October.
ASDA was founded in
1965 by a group of
Farmer s from
Yorkshire . The name is a contraction of ''Associated Dairies''. For a short time in the 1980s Asda Stores Ltd. was a subsidiary of ASDA-MFI plc other companies in the group were Associated Dairies Ltd., the furnture retailer
MFI and
Allied Carpets . After the sale of MFI and Allied the company name changed to ASDA Group plc. The dairy division was sold to
Northern Foods plc. The company went through a troubled period in the early
1990s , but was then revived under the leadership of
Archie Norman , who later became a front bench
Conservative MP . He was chairman of the company during the period 1996–99.
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- Mart Supercentres" have been opened, creating some of the largest Hypermarket s in the United Kingdom. The first of these stores opened at Cribbs Causeway , near Bristol , in June 2000 . At first, it was criticised for its scale and condemned as an eye-sore, but the format has now become extremely popular. In November 2004 a refurbishment of the hypermarket was completed, addressing some of the complaints.
In 2005, amid reported concerns within Wal-Mart about a slight slippage in market share, partially due to a resurgent
Sainsbury's , ASDA's chief executive, Tony de Nunzio, was replaced by Andy Bond.
In October
2004 ASDA launched a new format called 'Asda Living'. This is the company's first 'general merchandise' store, containing all its non-food ranges including clothing, home electronics, toys, homewares, health and beauty products. The first store with this format opened in
Walsall ,
West Midlands in October 2004, and at the time of writing has been followed by three further stores in Cortonwood (Barnsley), Altrincham and Byker (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). A fifth has now opened in Thurrock, Essex. Tesco is also trialling a similar format, "Homeplus", in Denton, Greater Manchester. Asda has also opened a number of stores containing its George range only in several city centres.
In
March 2006 , ASDA launched a new format called ''ASDA Essentials'' in a former
Co-op store in
Northampton . With a primary focus on own-brand products on a much smaller floorplate than ASDA's mainstream stores, the Essentials will only stock branded products that are perceived to be at the "core" of a family's weekly shop. This is seen as ASDA's response to the increasing strength of
Tesco and
Sainsbury in the
Convenience Store sector. If the trial is a success, it will be rolled out nationally.
ASDA is currently expanding its range of services to include Financial Services sold in store and at
online . Products currently sold are
Car ,
Home ,
Travel ,
Life and
Pet Insurance ,
Child Trust Funds and
Credit Cards .
Unlike Tesco and Sainsbury's, ASDA does not operate convenience stores, a position it shares with the fourth major British supermarket chain
Morrisons .
Tesco has 30.4% of the
UK Grocery Market while ASDA's share is 16.6%.
In
2006 , ASDA is on 16.6% and Sainsbury's on 16.2%, compared to 16.8% versus 16.0% at the same point in 2005.
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ASDA is known for two famous marketing campaigns. In the "ASDA price" campaign, customers tap their trouser pockets, producing a 'chinking' sound as the coins that Asda's low prices have supposedly left in their pockets knock together. In 2004,
Sharon Osbourne was selected to be part of a new marketing campaign by ASDA, her last advert was aired in August 2005. In the smiley face "rollback" campaign also used in Wal-Mart advertisements, a
CGI smiley face bounces from price tag to price tag, knocking them down as customers watch. The focus of these campaigns is to portray ASDA as the most affordable supermarket in the country, a claim that is challenged by competitors, especially
Tesco .
ASDA has been winner of the . As a result ASDA no longer cites itself as "Officially Britain's lowest priced supermarket", instead using "Winner: Britain's lowest price supermarket award".
Early in 2006 the company was found to be in breach of the UK employment law with regard to trade unions and was fined £850,000. They were also in trouble for asking some Asian employees working in their distribution centres to produce their passports proving they can work in the UK. This action has led to investigations into claims of racism. This led workers' unions to ballot staff on strike action in 21 of their distribution centres.
ASDA has featured prominently in lists of "Best companies to work for", appearing in second place in the Times newspaper list for 2005. It offers staff a
Discount of 10% on most items (exceptions include fuel, stamps and lottery and tobacco related items).
In 2005, the company was criticised by some of its employees for the treatment their fellow workers received in both stores and depots across the country. In late 2005 it was revealed in a survey carried out by the company that only 1 in 4 of its staff actually shopped in-store.
On an "extra discount day" in December 2005, ASDA temporarily increased the staff discount to 20%, but excluded
Beers ,
Wines and
Spirits ('BWS') from the extra discount for reasons of "operational profit protection". The
GMB Union attempted to get
Tesco to offer a similar discount to ASDA staff as a
Publicity Stunt , and ASDA subsequently included BWS in the extra discount, but with a maximum spend of £100.
Wal-Mart's US operation has come under scathing attack regarding the treatment of its workforce with the release of a by a prominent Hollywood producer,
Robert Greenwald , which parodies the company's claims that it is an employee friendly, ethically minded company, and works in support of local communities. Walmart has responded with a film of its own, promoting working practices within the company.
ASDA launched its online retailer service in 1998, but from the start had over-estimated demand. It started off from a dedicated depot facility based in Croydon (South London) but was closed with a number of redundancies shortly after as sales were not as expected. It continued the online retailer service but copied the Tesco store based model instead. In May 2005 it announced a major expansion of the service which will increase coverage from 30% of the UK population to 60%.
ASDA has its own range of clothing known as . This is marketed as quality fashion clothing at affordable prices. Wal-Mart also sells the George brand in
Germany , the
United States ,
Canada and
South Korea . In the mid 2000s the brand was extended to a range of standalone George stores on the high street. The George label is named after
George Davies , founder of
Next , who went on to set up the
Per Una clothing business for
Marks & Spencer .
In 2005, ASDA stated that the George range was a £1.75 billion business, including sales from Wal-Mart stores in the US and Germany.
Mintel estimate that George is the fourth largest retailer of clothing in the United Kingdom, after
Marks And Spencer ,
Next and the
Arcadia Group Mintel , Clothing Retailing - UK, July 2005.
- 21% of ASDA's "colleagues" are over age 50.
- ASDA is the first supermarket to stock Wedding Dresses . Part of the George line, they cost just £60. Adult bridesmaid dresses ranged between £30 and £35, at launch.ASDA Press Centre: From Supermarket to Church Aisle for £60 , 23 January 2006.
