Shoprite Holdings, the South African retailer, claimed today (23 February) that it had increased its share of its domestic grocery market after seeing half-year sales jump more than 14%.
The company’s Shoprite, Checkers and Usave supermarket chains in South Africa, booked a 14.5% increase in turnover to ZAR26.3bn (US$3.42bn).
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Group sales rose 11.9% to ZAR33.14bn in the six months to the end of December. Shoprite said it had increased its “core” market share by 1.2% to 29.8%. Trading profit was up 17.5% at ZAR1.67bn.
“That we could achieve a trading profit growth of 17.5% on turnover that grew 11.9% is due to an experienced management team that controls the cost-base rigidly, while maximising the benefits provided by our advanced infrastructure in information technology and supply-chain management,” insisted chief executive Whitey Basson.
However, Shoprite had a tougher time outside of South Africa, where it has 106 supermarkets and where margins fell.
Basson said consumers on the African continent, a region dependent on commodity exports, were hit by the global recession.
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By GlobalDataBasson added that the strengthening of the rand against most currencies in the region increased the price of goods imported from South Africa.
“Not all price increases could be passed on to consumers, thus gross margin was sacrificed to assist them,” Basson said.
Sales in constant-currency terms rose 16.3% but, on a reported basis, sales fell 4.3% to ZAR3.61bn due to foreign exchange.
