One of South Africa’s biggest retailers, Shoprite has hit record high sales this financial year, raking in US$8.7 billion into its coffers, chief executive Pieter Engelbrecht said on Wednesday.
Shoprite owns U-Save and Checkers, much smaller retail outlets, which also reported an increase in market share and record revenue for the year ended in June 2020.
Engelbrecht said despite the underlining recession, made worse by the coronavirus pandemic and its lockdown restrictions, the retailer did well because its operations were considered essential services.
His announcement came a day after Statistics South Africa announced that the country gross domestic product shrunk by 51 percent during the second quarter of 2020, which was at the height of the pandemic lockdown.
In spite of the negative growth, the retailer opened 147 new stores during the financial year ended June 2020, Engelbrecht said.
“To a large degree, Covid has had its negative effects but we must not discount the fact that there were also some positives as we were very fortunate to be classified as an essential service.
“Secondly, because of the closure of restaurants and fast food outlets, we benefitted from this front as well,” the official said.
He revealed that the firm had to slow down in opening stores during the Covid period, “opening only six stores in the last quarter.”
“But that has now been accelerated after the easing of the lockdown restrictions,” the chief executive said.
Shoprite has retail outlets in East, West, North and Southern African countries.
NM/jn/APA