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South Africa’s largest food retailer, Shoprite Holdings, made a profit of R3.71 billion and opened 205 stores in 26 weeks.
The group announced its interim financial results for 26 weeks ended 29 December 2024 on Tuesday.
Shoprite Holdings is the parent company of Shoprite, Usave, Checkers, and Checkers Sixty60.
Pieter Engelbrecht, group CEO, said through their Xtra Savings rewards programme, they were able to save customers R8.9 billion.
They also created 2 989 new jobs within 26 weeks, bringing their employee base to more than R163 000.
The group’s sales increased by 9.6% to R128.6 billion, underpinned by its core Supermarkets RSA segment, to which all supermarket brands contributed.
“The group’s earnings before interest, income tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 16.7% and measured R11.7 billion,” reads the financial results.
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The group opened 205 stores during the period, expanding its continuing operations footprint to 3 417 stores.
Shoprite’s profit increased by 11.9% to R3.71 billion. Which means, during the 26 weeks (182 days), the group made approximately R20 million a day.
Supermarkets RSA, which includes Shoprite, Usave, Checkers, Checkers Hyper, LiquorShop made up 83.7% of the group’s sales.
“As a segment, Supermarkets RSA achieved 10.4% sales growth, with like-for-like (same-store) sales increasing by 6.1%.
“Internal selling price inflation for the segment measured 1.9% for the period. Customer visits increased by 4.1%, and average basket spend increased by 6.1%.
“Private label brands feature in a number of categories across all of our supermarket chains, with participation measuring 20.4% excluding liquor for the period.”
For the 26-week period, Checkers and Checkers Hyper, including Checkers LiquorShop, increased their merchandise sales by 13.6% to R47.6 billion.
The brand contributed 44.2% to the group’s core Supermarkets RSA segment’s sales.
When excluding Checkers LiquorShop, the Checkers banner increased sales by R5.2 billion to R43.7 billion for the 26 weeks.
Checkers Sixty60, increased sales by 47.1%, expanding the store base from which it services Checkers customers to 601 stores.
The report added that Checkers opened 18 stores, three of which were in the new smaller Checkers Foods neighbourhood format, bringing the total in this new smaller format to 12 stores.
Checkers’ FreshX programme continued with upgrading 29 stores, ending the period with 144 stores trading in this format (approximately 40% of the Checkers store footprint).
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Shoprite and Usave, including Shoprite LiquorShop, increased sales by 7.1% to R59.2 billion, contributing 55.0% to the group’s core Supermarkets RSA segment’s sales.
Excluding Shoprite LiquorShop, the two banners increased sales by R3.3 billion, to R52.8 billion.
“Shoprite opened 30 stores over the 12 months, ending the period with 660 stores.
“Over the six-month interim period, Shoprite opened a net of 21 supermarkets.”
Usave increased sales by 6.8%. It had a net store opening of 28 stores over the 12 months, resulting in Usave ending the period with 480 stores.
Over the six months under review, Usave opened a net of 18 supermarkets.
The Group said when it comes to Supermarkets Non-RSA, operations increased sales by 4.1%, contributing 8.6% to group sales.
“We estimate internal food inflation for the regions averaged 9.5% for the period.
“The segment operates in nine countries with 269 stores. Over the 12 months, the segment’s store base increased by a net of 10 stores.”
When it comes to other operating segments under the group, sales increased by 6.2%, and 7.7% contributed to the group sales.
Other stores under the group include OK Franchise, Transpharm, Medirite in-store pharmacies, Medirite Plus standalone drug stores, Red Star Wholesale Catering Services, Computicket and the reclassified Angola and Mozambique furniture operations.
“Sales to our OK Franchise business increased by 8.8%, and the franchise division ended the period with 623 stores.”
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