Shoprite sees double-digit sales growth, ups dividend

Checkers-owner Shoprite Holdings saw a significant increase in sales over the 2023 financial year.

Shoprite released its results for the year ended 2 July 2023 today, which revealed strong results for the retailer.

Group merchandise sales increased by 16.9% to R215.0 billion, while local merchandise sales increased by 17.8% to R173.6 billion.

Checkers and Checkers Hyper saw sales growth of 18.0%, which can be attributed to “superb delivery on the value and range our customers have come to know, trust and expect from the brand”, Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht said. 

Checkers Sixty60 increased sales by 81.5%, “underscoring the continued growth of our Checkers omnichannel customer and validating our strategy in terms of our investment in digital and data-led decision making”. 

Shoprite and Usave saw sales growth of 15.6%.

This saw the company’s earnings significantly increase, as headline earnings per share rose 9.6% and basic earnings per share rose 10%. EBITDA increased by 13.0% to R18.8 billion.

“In the context of the country’s power challenges, we are pleased to still report growth in headline earnings and dividends per share,” Engelbrecht said.

“It is disappointing, however, that if not for the R1.3 billion diesel expense incurred to power generators across our South African store base, our market-leading sales growth would have delivered considerably higher returns for our shareholders.”

“Similarly, our profit growth would also have resulted in a higher Shoprite Employee Trust distribution for our employees.”

The retailer’s trading profit increased by 5.7% from R11.28 billion in 2022 to R11.92 billion.

During the year, Shoprite opened a net number of 340 stores. Of these, 94 stores were acquired from Massmart Holdings, of which 92 were integrated into Shoprite, Usave and Shoprite LiquorShop businesses. 

The retailer created 8,131 new jobs in FY 2023, including 4,480 jobs retained from the Massmart acquisition. 

Shoprite declared a full-year dividend per share (DPS) of 663 cents – a 10.5% increase from 2022. 

This results from the interim DPS increasing by 6.4% to 248 cents (2022: 233 cents) and the final DPS rising by 13.1% to 415 cents (2022: 367 cents).