Woolworths on Thursday (20 February), reported a substantial drop in earnings for the 26 weeks ended 29 December 2019, leading to a reduced interim dividend.

It was South Africa’s leading discount retailer before its costly move into fresh food.The plan by JSE-listed retail giant Massmart to expand its popular discount retail chain Game into a fully-fledged food retailer has failed.

Pharmacy group Dis-Chem said on Wednesday (19 February 2020) promotional campaigns and a wide product range helped it fend off the effects of load shedding in the 22 weeks to February 2, when it grew its market share.

Tiger Brands, which has spent the past year doing damage control in the wake of the listeriosis outbreak of 2018, says it has made “good progress” in its plans to sell its Value-Added Meat Products (VAMP) division.

Spar’s offshore investments are doing more poorly than local and African sales as it struggles in Switzerland and experiences marginal growth in its Irish business.

South African retail group Woolworths says that a constrained economy and power supply issues negatively impacted its operations in the half year period ending 29 December 2019 – but its food sales remained resilient.

Shoprite, the owner of Checkers and Usave stores, said on Wednesday that liquor sales in its half-year to end-December 2019 rose by more than a fifth, helping to underpin almost double-digit sales growth in its core SA business.

Retailer Woolworths has gained market share in its food and fashion businesses in the 20 weeks to November 17, even as its Australian operations continued to underperform.

Despite a tough local market, Spar saw strong liquor sales at its Tops chain.

The pharmacy group Dis-Chem saw its revenue grow by 13% to R11.8bn in the six months to end-August – still, its profit declined by a large margin due to costs related to a months-long strike that started at the end of 2018.

SA’s largest grocer reviews its return on capital invested in Africa after currency devaluations and a need to close stores in Nigeria due to a backlash weighed on results

Cash-flush pharmaceutical health and beauty retailer Clicks returned a total of R1.2 billion to its shareholders in the year to the end of August, bringing total dividends paid in the past 10 years to R7.4bn.