{"id":873224,"date":"2026-09-02T08:37:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T06:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=873224"},"modified":"2026-09-02T08:37:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T06:37:32","slug":"woolworths-is-making-a-big-change-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/873224\/woolworths-is-making-a-big-change-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Woolworths is making a big change in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Woolworths says it will be “reorienting” itself around its Food business, which is outperforming its other segments and giving it a major competitive edge in the South African grocery market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group reported modest growth in earnings for the year ended June 2026, with its Food segment outshining its other businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths operates in several retail sectors in South Africa and abroad, including food, clothing, and homeware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has a major footprint in the country, with over 34,000 employees in its South African operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2026 financial year, Woolworths saw its turnover increase by 4.3% year on year to R84.5 billion, with growth in every business segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its Earnings Before Interest, Taxation, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA) also grew modestly, by 2.8% to R8.9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths had a slight drop in its earnings per share, which decreased to R2.63, but headline earnings per share (HEPS) rose to R2.82 from R2.68.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the group’s best-performing segments was its Woolworths Food section, which increased its turnover by 5.7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said it had also made “continued market share gains” in South Africa’s grocery and supermarket industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growing market share comes as Woolworths has opened 13 new grocery stores in South Africa, increasing its total trading space to over 291,000 square metres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While its food sector grew strongly, other areas, such as its home and beauty segment, saw only modest growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This segment increased its revenue by R650 million year-on-year, representing a 4.3% rise to R15.8 billion in revenue for 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Country Road, an Australian fashion brand owned by Woolworths, returned to full-year profitability in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said this was due to benefiting from repositioned brands, a deliberate focus on sales quality, and the business’s reset operating model, which reduced costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Woolworths Food’s outperformance, the company said it would focus on repositioning itself in the food sector, given the segment’s strong performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said it would be “reorienting around its market-leading premium Food business \u2013 its strongest competitive advantage and primary engine of both brand equity and value creation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Carefully selected adjacent categories will strengthen the customer proposition and the group\u2019s own ecosystem.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the Group\u2019s reset to reorient around its Food business, the group said that its Home and Beauty categories will act as an extension of Food into a broader lifestyle proposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still room for improvement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite the solid results, the group’s CEO, Sam Ngumeni, said there was more to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While our results reflect the resilience of our portfolio and the strength of Woolworths Food, it is not where we want to be,” Ngumeni said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are clear on the opportunities and the actions required to unlock greater value, and we are moving decisively to improve performance across the group.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have already made progress, and that stands us in good stead for the year ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths said that, despite a strong start to the financial year, the war between the United States and Iran created a difficult trading environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said that the war’s knock-on effect on consumer fuel prices raised inflation concerns in South Africa, muting consumer spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The war in the Middle East drove higher fuel prices and inflation, weighing on consumer confidence and demand while adding to operating costs,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The resumption of interest rate increases in both South Africa and Australia further constrained household spending, with consumers placing greater emphasis on promotions and essential purchases.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Woolworths Financial Services division also posted solid results for 2026, with the book growing by 5.6% year-on-year to the end of June 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this, too, was impacted by the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The deteriorating macroeconomic environment in the second half resulted in higher impairment coverage, with the annualised impairment rate for the year increasing to 7% from 6.1% in the prior period,” Woolworths said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woolworths’ financial services section ultimately contributed R228 million in profit to the group, a 5.6% year-on-year increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Woolworths 2026 financial results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>Year ended 30 June 2026<\/strong><\/td>Year ended 30 June 2025<\/strong><\/td>Change %<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Revenue (Rm)<\/td>83,471<\/td>80,243<\/td>+4.0%<\/td><\/tr>
Operating profit (Rm)<\/td>5,115<\/td>5,050<\/td>+1.3%<\/td><\/tr>
HEPS (cents)<\/td>282.3<\/td>268.1<\/td>+5.3%<\/td><\/tr>
Headline Earnings<\/td>2,489<\/td>2,396<\/td>+3.9%<\/td><\/tr>
Dividend (cents)<\/td>199.0<\/td>188.0<\/td>+5.9%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Woolworths is reorienting its business around its most successful segment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":854134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2095038525343150536","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2193553651465034","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18146963155557990","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[20489,26373,949],"class_list":["post-873224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-country-road","tag-sam-ngumeni","tag-woolworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873224","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873224"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":873261,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873224\/revisions\/873261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}