Truworths has seen its sales decline in South Africa in the first 17 weeks of its 2027 financial year, with November and December being key months for the retailer’s performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a business update published on the Stock Exchange News Service (SENS), the group said its sales in Africa had declined 2.7% from the prior period to R4.1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its 2026 financial year, Truworths reported a 2.1% decline in retail sales in Africa and noted that consumer spending in South Africa had been subdued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Trading in the first half of the period remained subdued, with South African consumer spending constrained by uncertainty from global trade tensions,” the group noted at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the previous year had seen a decrease in sales, the group said in its 2026 annual results that it was confident retail spending would recover in the medium term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The Group remains confident of a gradual recovery in retail spending over the medium term as inflation moderates, the impact of higher fuel costs eases, interest rates stabilise and consumer sentiment improves,” Truworths said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In the near term, however, consumer discretionary spending is expected to remain constrained by muted economic growth, elevated household debt, subdued consumer confidence, moderate wage growth and persistently high unemployment.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its latest update, the company’s sales continued to decline, with cash sales seeing the largest decrease from the prior period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Account sales decreased by 0.2% and represented 73% of the segment\u2019s retail sales (prior period: 71%). Cash sales decreased by 8.6%,” the group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company said its interim performance was heavily dependent on November and December, which it considered “key trading months.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The key November and December trading months lie ahead,” Truworths said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The Group\u2019s sales performance and results for the 26 weeks ending 27 December 2026 will depend significantly on trading levels over this period.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several retailers have noted subdued consumer spending in the last year, due to higher inflation and interest rates spurred by conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The war in Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz have driven a surge in global oil prices, raising fuel costs for consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These higher prices have heavily impacted South Africa’s inflation, which has consistently been above the country’s 3% target in the last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Truworths has seen its sales in Africa decline, with the next two months being key for the retailer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":818232,"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":"2118306091897401511","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2261747844645614","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18036758168897976","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[1364,25075,3671],"class_list":["post-882782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-sens-2","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-truworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882782","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=882782"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":882806,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882782\/revisions\/882806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}