Amazon will outstrip Tesco as the UK’s largest retailer within the next four years thanks to a continued e-commerce boom, according to research.
Edge by Ascential, a data company, forecast the technology giant will reach £77.1 billion of UK sales by 2025, edging out Tesco’s predicted revenue of £76.1 billion.
It would mark a dramatic increase from this year, when Amazon made £36.3 billion, around half that of the Big 4 grocer.
Amazon is expected to grow around 16.3 per cent every year to 2025, more than four times as fast as Tesco, thanks to a rapid rise in grocery sales.
READ MORE: Amazon launches fourth UK Fresh store
Although the Seattle-based company only ranks 19th among the country’s food retailers, its grocery sales leapt by a fifth over 2020 thanks to its Morrisons partnership.
In March this year, it opened its first Amazon Fresh store, where customers can buy groceries without scanning them or visiting a till.
The multinational already has four shops across London, and is reportedly planning 20 openings a year from 2022.
“Amazon has grown its online retail footprint in the UK and expanded into the high street […] where it can trial technology and product innovation and increase brand presence,” Edge by Ascential chief executive Deren Baker said.
“This is next-generation retail – Retail 5.0 – marketplaces mastering personalisation at scale.”
He advised grocery brands to “focus investment on winning market share through the online platforms most relevant to them”.
The news comes after Chancellor Rishi Sunak joined President Biden’s call for a minimum global corporation tax on tech giants.
“Large multinational companies, particularly digital companies, are able by the nature of their businesses not to pay the right tax in the right places,” Sunak told The Mail on Sunday.
“That’s not fair and means there isn’t a level playing field with high street businesses.”
In 2019, Amazon made £13.73 billion in the UK and paid £293 million, or 2.1 per cent, in tax.
