Shoprite grows customers, baskets, volumes and jobs

Pieter Engelbrecht, Chief Executive Officer

In an operating environment marred by chronic power outages throughout South Africa, sales growth of this magnitude can only be achieved with expert planning, exceptional teamwork and seamless execution on all fronts. The Group’s results remain underpinned by our powerhouse South African supermarket operation, generating 80.1% of Group sales and increasing sales by 17.5%. While Checkers and Checkers Hyper’s growth strategy continues to gain customer support, increasing sales by 16.9%, Shoprite and Usave’s commitment to price leadership resulted in sales growth of 15.1%.

As a Group we remain humbled by the loyalty demonstrated by our customers, 26 million of which are Xtra Savings rewards members. We are acutely aware that they have a choice in terms of where they shop, and we thank them for recognising the value we offer in difficult times. In no small measure, the additional amount spent by our customers at Checkers, Checkers Hyper, Shoprite, Usave, LiquorShop and our new South African formats over this six-month period compared to the same period last year amounted to R12.7 billion. This growth equates to 1.4% in South African market share gains and pleasingly was achieved from a healthy combination of volume growth, customer growth and increased basket spend.

We are disappointed that as a result of the diesel expense, to mitigate the impact of load-shedding during the period, we are not reporting the level of profit and dividend growth normally associated with such a notable achievement in terms of sales growth. The ongoing cost to our economy in terms of growth and investment is devastating, as is the impact on the everyday lives of South Africans, most of whom are already dealing with considerable hardship.

With this in mind, my sincere thanks are due to Team Shoprite, our people, who like so many participants in the food value chain have battled through the last few months, tested every day with the impact of changing load-shedding schedules. It is due to their solution-driven approach and dedication to serve that we have continued to grow the business at this level and, importantly, allowed us to balance the needs of all of our stakeholders. We invested R7 billion into price for our customers, increased our dividend to shareholders by 6.4% and invested in our people with an across-the-board minimum wage increase and payments associated with our Shoprite Employee Trust in South Africa and equivalent awards in countries outside South Africa. Furthermore, in line with the Group’s pro-job creation stance, our supermarket businesses created 3 881 direct new jobs not including the 4 480 people employed by the Group since January 2023 as part of the purchase of select businesses from Massmart Holdings Ltd. This is only possible because of the capable nature of our business, simultaneously executing day-to-day operations at a level we believe to be best in its class, while advancing our future road map designed to provide the Group and its valued stakeholders with continued growth for many years to come.