South Africa’s largest non-grocery retailer, Pepkor, announced on Monday that it would explore expansion opportunities throughout Africa, despite shutting down all its operations in Zimbabwe due to its continued economic woes.
In a statement from the retail conglomerate, Pepkor CEO Leon Lourens said the company was actively pursuing opportunities to increase its presence in the African market.
“Despite expecting these challenging operating conditions to continue, we see many opportunities for market share expansion through continually focusing on satisfying the needs of our customers in the value and discount segments of the market,” Lourens said.
He added that Pepkor remained “cautiously optimistic” about the retail environment across southern Africa, and that the group continued to identify new opportunities for growth through its existing footprint and through innovation.
Furthermore, Lourens added that he was satisfied with the market share gains over the year, particularly clothing, footwear and home brands which had grown by 6.5% to R45bn.
– Bjorn Vorster
