Continente’s Sales Surge Heats Up Portugal’s Supermarket Price War

Sonae’s grocery arm has pulled off another acceleration. Continente, the flagship banner, extended its lead after posting 9% like-for-like growth in the third quarter, a pace that left main rival Pingo Doce trailing and reinforced the chain’s status as the heavyweight of Portuguese food retail. Backed by strong volumes, the division turned in €1.9 billion in sales and a fresh round of margin expansion, helping parent company Sonae MC close the nine-month period with a 38 % surge in profit. For shoppers coping with tighter household budgets, the figures signal an intensifying battle over price, convenience and loyalty—one likely to shape grocery bills across the country as 2025 draws to a close.

Market momentum

Falling inflation and a gradual rebound in real wages have encouraged families to restock fridges rather than chase promotions alone. Even so, the sector remains fiercely promotional: NielsenIQ data show that discounts still represent nearly half of total food sales value. Against that backdrop, Sonae’s grocery receipts climbed faster than the market, while overall group revenue rose 8 % to €2.9 billion in the quarter. Analysts attribute the achievement to a mix of disciplined cost control and an agile response to shifting demand, noting that Portuguese consumers are increasingly dividing their baskets between large weekly shops and top-up visits to neighbourhood outlets.

How Continente pulled ahead

The secret sauce has several ingredients. First, the company pressed its price offensive, relaunching its communication platform around the pillars of Price, Variety, Quality and Responsibility—language that resonates in a country where purchasing power remains below the EU average. Second, Sonae opened two dozen Continente Bom Dia proximity stores and refurbished a similar number of larger formats, channelling €331 million in capex last year toward layouts that highlight fresh categories. Third, the online storefront benefited from the wider group’s digital know-how—Worten’s e-commerce share of revenue rose to almost 20 %, and management says the same back-office tools are now embedded in grocery logistics. Finally, supply-chain savings, from energy-efficient refrigeration to AI-driven demand forecasts, freed capital to absorb selective price cuts without sacrificing profitability.

Pingo Doce and the chasing pack

Jerónimo Martins is not standing still. Pingo Doce rolled out its revamped “All About Food” concept—stores that blend ready-to-eat counters with expanded produce aisles—and will remodel up to 50 sites this year. Investment is also flowing upstream: the group took an 18 % stake in Norwegian cod farmer Norcod and snapped up fruit supplier Luís Vicente to reinforce its control over seafood and fresh produce. Lidl, meanwhile, keeps broadening its presence in the centre of the country, while Mercadona has edged past Intermarché to claim fourth place thanks to an unrelenting opening cadence. Still, the gap in like-for-like growth between Continente and Pingo Doce widened to 4.6 percentage points in Q3, underlining the scale of the challenge facing the runner-up.

What it means for Portuguese households

A widening performance gap usually foreshadows sharper competition on the shop floor. Retail strategists say the coming months could bring more weekly price locks on staple goods, deeper fresh-food promotions, and a broader rollout of personalised digital coupons. For residents outside the main metropolitan areas, the proliferation of proximity formats is gradually shortening travel times to a full basket shop. At the same time, rising market power brings scrutiny: advocacy groups have already called on watchdog ASAE to monitor whether savings from lower raw-material costs are fully passed along to consumers.

Analysts see room for more movement

Equity houses from JB Capital to CaixaBank/BPI flag Sonae MC as the primary earnings engine inside the Maia-based conglomerate, but they also caution that discount channels remain the fastest-growing segment and could compress margins industry-wide. IGD projects a compound annual growth rate of 5 % for discount formats through 2029, a forecast that puts pressure on full-service banners to differentiate via private-label innovation and convenience services rather than sheer scale alone. As Rita Machado Belo of CaixaBI notes, the key question heading into 2026 is whether Sonae can keep translating operational gains into more aggressive shelf pricing without eroding profitability.

The takeaway

For now, Continente’s momentum offers Sonae a cushion against slower growth in other parts of the portfolio and sets the tone for an end-of-year promotional season that could be the most competitive since the pandemic. Portuguese households stand to benefit from the heightened jockeying—provided they navigate the fast-changing mix of vouchers, app-based rewards and in-store deals that has become the new normal in the nation’s supermarket aisles.