Woolworths vs Shoprite vs Pick n Pay vs Spar vs Massmart

South Africa’s retail sector has come under pressure over the last two years as consumers suffer through economic hardship and increasingly struggle to make ends meet.

While the latest financial year has shown some recovery in the industry, retailers are looking for new ways to catch the eye of customers and how better to serve their needs in this changing landscape.

Groups like Shoprite have thrived in the ‘new’ environment, growing revenue and retail footprint while developing innovative new ways to connect to customers – like its hugely successful Sixty60 delivery platform.

Pick n Pay, meanwhile, has embarked on a total repositioning in the market, launching a new chain of stores – QualiSave – in a bid to carve out more of the growing middle and upper markets.

Other retailers have struggled, however. Massmart, for example, has continued to post losses as it struggles to find footing in South Africa.

So which of these retail giants – Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Woolworths, Spar Group and Massmart – stands tallest, or is the biggest?

BusinessTech looked at the most recent annual financial reports (from 2021/22) and compared the country’s five biggest listed retailers on 10 key metrics – from financial performance to investment and reach.

The data below covers both group and South African operations – for example, group data was used for finances, while South African data was taken for stores and employees. Share prices, market cap and P/E rations were taken from Bloomberg data.

The data covers the following reporting periods:

• Shoprite – FY 2022 (ended July)
• Woolworths – FY 2022 (ended June)
• Pick n Pay – FY 2022 (ended February)
• Massmart – FY 2021 (ended December)
• Spar FY 2021 (ended September)

Investment indicators

Shoprite is by far the biggest retailer when looking at market capitalisation, coming in at a total of R131.4 billion – more than double the next on the list, Woolworths.

The group also has a larger share price than the other retailers assessed. Given its substantial size, it makes sense that the group is considered quite expensive to invest in, with a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.41.

However, this is slightly lower than Pick n Pay, which has a ratio of 22.04. The ‘cheapest’ retailer is Spar, with a P/E of 12.02.

Group Finances

Across the major retailers, Massmart is the only group assessed to have posted a loss over the last financial year. While the data below covers the full year to December 2021, the group’s recent interim results show that it continues to struggle while other retailers make do.

Shoprite is the leader in terms of turnover and headline earnings in the sector, making R184.1 billion in sales and posting earnings of R5.8 billion in 2022.

Spar, meanwhile, has the highest earnings per share, at 1,196 cents per share.

Basket prices

BusinessTech does an annual measure of basket prices among retailers. In 2022, we looked at house brands.

Several analyses of the retail sector and household affordability in South Africa have shown that consumers are increasingly dropping expensive name brands from their shopping basket and turning to private label brands to save money.

Looking at a basket of 18 house brands across the retailers, Pick n Pay’s No Name brand offered the most affordable rate. This is followed very closely by Checkers.

Massmart was not covered in the review.

Reach

Shoprite claims to be the biggest private sector employer in South Africa, and with 123,750 permanent employees in the country (2021 figure) it far outstrips its competitors.

Pick n Pay’s employee count is 88,000, while others sit around the 30,000 employee mark.

While it appears that Spar has low employee numbers – listing 4,476 permanent staff – the group’s business model lends itself to franchising, thus the number excludes the thousands of independent retailers and their employees.

The franchise model also adds a wide network of stores for Spar, which tops the list of having the most outlets across its various brands.

The various retail brands are listed below:

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