LONDON (Reuters) -The UK arm of German discount supermarket Aldi on Thursday raised its long-term target to 1,500 stores, saying it would invest billions of pounds to achieve it.
Aldi UK, whose previous target was 1,200 UK stores by 2025, is opening its 1,000th UK store on Thursday in Woking, southern England.
Owned by Aldi Sud, Aldi UK is Britain's fourth-largest supermarket group after Tesco (LON:TSCO), Sainsbury's and Asda. It has a market share of over 10% according to researcher Kantar.
Aldi UK said it will open another 20 new stores before the end of the year, as part of its 1.3 billion pounds ($1.62 billion) two-year investment plan.
"The next phase of our expansion will involve another 500 new stores over the coming years. It is a long-term target and is not a ceiling to our ambition to have an Aldi store close to everyone in the UK," said CEO Giles Hurley.
Aldi UK and fellow discounter Lidl GB are Britain's fastest growing food retailers.
Their appeal has grown during a cost of living crisis now into its second year and, unlike their traditional rivals, they continue to open lots of new stores.
The discounters' performance has forced the traditional major players to compete more aggressively.
Tesco and Sainsbury's both have schemes that match Aldi prices on key products and are utilising loyalty schemes, while they have accepted a profit hit to keep prices down.
($1 = 0.8006 pounds)