South Africa’s biggest clothing retailer rolling out stores across the country

Pepkor has ambitious expansion plans for its 2025 financial year, with plans to roll out between 250 and 300 new stores.

Pepkor is South Africa’s largest clothing retailer, with well-known South African brands like PEP, Ackermans, Shoe City, Tekkie Town, Refinery, HiFi Corp and Incredible Connection in its portfolio.

On Tuesday, 26 May 2025, Pepkor released its results for the six months through March 2025, the first half of its 2025 financial year.

These results revealed a strong first-half performance for the retailer, with revenue of R48.81 billion, up 12.8% compared to the first half of its 2024 financial year.

This total primarily consists of retail revenue, which was R45.58 billion in this period, up 10.5%. 

While far smaller than its retail segment, the group’s financial services segment has also been growing. It contributed R2.97 billion to total revenue, up 67.9% from the prior year.

Pepkor’s profit grew by 23.45% to R3.05 billion in the period, while its total basic earnings per share shot up 23.3% to 83.1 cents per share.

This strong financial performance came alongside several strategic developments for the retailer in its 2025 financial year.

Firstly, Pepkor entered new customer segments with its acquisition of Choice Clothing on 26 November 2024, which was concluded in May 2025 and will be implemented from 1 June 2025. 

The retailer explained that this acquisition will allow it to enter the emerging semi-formal off-price customer segment.

Choice will be a separate business unit within the group to ensure it retains its entrepreneurial business model. However, it will have access to the PEP infrastructure to leverage its capabilities in sourcing, supply chain and financial services.

Pepkor said Choice operates 107 stores and has the opportunity to expand to more than 300 stores.

Secondly, in the first half of its 2025 financial year, Pepkor expanded and scaled its Home Lifestyle business through the acquisition of Shoprite’s furniture business.

The retailer said this acquisition will add around 400 stores to its Lifestyle business’s store base of 922 stores. 

“This will enable expansion of its value proposition through a complementary product mix in furniture, bedding, appliances and consumer electronics, while also expanding its presence in underrepresented regions,” it said.

During the period, Pepkor also expanded its market share in adult wear through organic and acquisitive growth strategies. 

To do this, it has transitioned its standalone Ackermans womenswear format to Speciality, the group’s adult wear-focused business. 

It was relaunched as the newly developed Ayana brand across 32 stores at the end of February 2025.

In addition, the retailer’s acquisition of Legit and other businesses from Retailability was announced on 25 March 2025. 

This proposed acquisition will add around 462 stores to Speciality’s 972-store base and expand its market share in adult wear. 

“Opportunities to unlock value in sourcing, supply chain and back office functions have been identified, in addition to leveraging group capabilities in credit and other financial services,” the retailer said.

“In addition, the Choice format further enhances Pepkor’s presence in the adult wear market.”

Looking forward, the retailer said trading momentum continued into the year’s second half. 

“Amid the current uncertain global tariff environment, South Africa potentially stands to benefit from increased global product supply capacity,” it said. 

“In line with the group’s disciplined approach to maintaining consistent gross profit margins in retail brands such as PEP and Ackermans, any benefits realised will be reinvested in price and value.” 

Pepkor said it is well on track to open between 250 and 300 new stores in its 2025 financial year.

“With a solid foundation and clear strategic growth levers in place, Pepkor is well-positioned to outperform general market conditions and drive sustained value creation for shareholders,” it said.