Aldi will not budge on its business model of offering of high-quality products at the lowest price, said Aldi group managing director Tom Daunt.
“At the core of our business model is the need to offer the highest-quality product at the lowest price. It's a very dangerous territory to get into for a discounter to allow others to encroach on that area and that's certainly not part of our plan,” Daunt told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“We will always select the lowest price we're able to afford to sell the product at, which is very different to the standard retail convention, which is to price products at the highest you're able to get away with.”
But Daunt played down speculation that Aldi's sales could double or triple in the foreseeable future, saying "it's not going to happen".
"Despite our success over 14 years we do remain somewhat of a niche retailer, with a limited range of very high-quality products sold at heavily discounted prices. The niche nature of our business model won't change into the future, even though Aldi has added more national brands to its private label range and is expanding its fresh offer," he said.
"We're a company that's not focused on year-by-year sales growth and we're not focused on market share. What we are focused on is investing in Australia over a long period of time to produce a sustainable, successful operation."
Aldi Australia has vowed to maintain pricing pressure on rivals in the $85 billion grocery market, after increasing sales by 13 per cent in 2014, outpacing food and liquor sales growth at Coles and Woolworths almost three-fold.
Aldi Australia's sales reached $6 billion in the 12 months ending December 2014, compared with $5.3 billion in 2013. The growth was underpinned by strong same-store sales growth and 25 new stores.
In comparison, Woolworths' Australian food and liquor sales grew 4.7 per cent to $41.7 billion in fiscal 2014 and Coles' food and liquor sales rose 4.6 per cent to $29.2 billion.