Woolworths has warned that earnings are set to drop dramatically for the 2025 financial year amid problems facing the Australia-based Country Road Group (CRG). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a trading statement, the group said that turnover and concession sales increased by 6.1% and by 6.8% on a constant currency basis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This came despite challenging macroeconomic conditions across South Africa and Australia and significant anxiety caused by global trade relations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, the group warned that its basic earnings per share could drop by 5% to around 263.4 to 277.3 cents per share. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group\u2019s headline earnings per share are set for an even worse performance, dropping by 22% and 27% to between 257.2 and 274.8. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Australia, the group successfully disposed of a flagship investment property that houses David Jones for A$223.5 million and recognised a profit of R792 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, after assessing the carrying value of certain brands’ assets within the CRG, the Woolworths Group recognised an impairment of R917 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has had a highly negative impact on the group\u2019s earnings, while the weaker-than-expected performance of CRG also impacted results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
CRG was impacted by the weaker topline environment and diluted gross profit margins, which amplified the degree of negative operational leverage in the second half of the year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Consumer sentiment and discretionary spending remain subdued in South Africa despite moderating inflation and interest rate cuts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The group said that in spite of the constrained macro backdrop, Woolworths South Africa delivered strong turnover and concession sales growth of 9.4%<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group\u2019s food business saw above-market turnover and concession sales growth of 11.0% and 7.7% on a comparable-store basis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Price movement for the period averaged 5.3%, with positive underlying volume growth driven by growing football and the average basket size. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Food sales increased by 9.2%, excluding Absolute Pets, which was acquired in Q4 FY24. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Woolies Dash grew by 41.6% in FY25, with overall online sales increasing by 32.9% and contributing 6.6% to total Food sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fashion, Beauty and Home (FBH) turnover and concession sales increased by 4.7% and 5.1% on a comparable-store basis, while trading momentum improved.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Price movement averaged 2.3% over the period, incorporating Fashion inflation of 0.4%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur Beauty business continues to gain market share, delivering excellent growth of 14.7% over the period and reaffirming Woolies as the Beauty shopping destination in South Africa,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs part of our strategy to optimise space efficiency, net trading space decreased by 2.3% relative to the whilst online sales increased by 22.8% and contributed 6.6% to total FBH sales.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Woolworths Financial Services book decreased by 2.7% on a year-on-year basis, but increased by 0.5% when excluding the sale of part of the legal book of R1.6 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The impairment rate over the 12 months ended 30 June 2025 improved to 6.1%, compared to 7.0% in the prior period. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Woolworths is expecting to see a significant drop in full-year earnings as it continues to take strain in Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":773143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[20489,949],"class_list":["post-833614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-country-road","tag-woolworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833614"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":835163,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833614\/revisions\/835163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Metric<\/th> 52 weeks to 23 June 2024 (reported) (cents)<\/th> Expected Change (%)<\/th> 52 weeks to 29 June 2025 (expected range) (cents)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Earnings per share<\/td> 277.3<\/td> -5.0% to 0%<\/td> 263.4 to 277.3<\/td><\/tr> Headline Earnings per Share<\/td> 352.3<\/td> -22.0% to -27.0%<\/td> 257.2 to 274.8<\/td><\/tr> Adjusted Headline Earnings per Share<\/td> 375.4<\/td> -17.0% to -22.0%<\/td> 292.8 to 311.6<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n South Africa performance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n