Discount supermarket chain Aldi has announced plans to double its store footprint inside the greater London area over the next few years.

The news from the U.K.'s fifth-biggest supermarket comes after it posted record financial results.

The company said it would increase store numbers inside the M25 highway surrounding the city from 45 to 100 by the end of 2025. It will do this by opening more standard-sized Aldi stores and new, smaller-format ‘Local’ stores.

Aldi, which currently operates over 840 stores in the country, plans to open more than 100 new stores across the U.K. over the next two years alone. This is part of its long-term target of 1,200 stores by the end of 2025, underlining the scale of its ambitions.

In its annual trading update, Aldi said sales for the UK and Ireland had increased 11% to £11.3bn last year. The strong results came amid total UK grocery market growth of just 2.5%.

Aldi also claimed it had maintained its price advantage of 24% over the 'Big Four' supermarkets - Tesco, Asia, Sainsbury's and Morissons. on an average basket of everyday items, whilst increasing margin in the current year.   

Giles Hurley, CEO of Aldi UK and Ireland, said: “Every day, thousands of British shoppers are swapping and saving with Aldi thanks to our carefully-selected range of great quality products and our commitment to the lowest prices in grocery.

“Whilst our expansion will continue to reach every part of the UK, we’re increasing our focus on London, where our market share is just 3.4%, compared to 8.1% nationally.

"London shoppers regularly tell us they would switch to Aldi if there was one nearby, so there is clearly a significant growth opportunity for us in the capital.” 

Aldi said trials of its Local format – which measure around half the size of a typical store and stock around 1,500 products – had exceeded expectations since they began in March.

Commenting on the company’s future plans, Giles Hurley added: “For almost three decades we’ve proven that investment equals growth – investment in our infrastructure, our people and our prices.

"The commitment we have made to our customers to continue investing in the UK over the coming years remains as strong as ever."

The supermarket, which opened its first UK store in 1990, said it invested £531m last year, with a further £1bn planned over 2019 and 2020 in new stores, store upgrades and distribution centres.

Aldi said it was also continuing to roll out its Project Fresh initiative – a £300m investment to create more in store space for fresh, chilled and food-to-go ranges as well as simpler layouts, improved fixtures and brighter, wider aisles.

Over half of existing stores have been converted to the new format with the remaining stores being converted by the end of 2022.