How much would you have if you invested R10000 1 yr ago?

South Africa’s largest clothing retailers have seen different levels of performance over the last year, with Pepkor, Mr Price, and the Foschini Group (TFG) going strong, while Truworths struggles.

South Africa’s retail landscape has improved dramatically in recent times, with many consumers buoyed by lower inflation, declining interest rates, and political stability following the 2024 national election.

The latest retail survey from the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) showed business sentiment in the sector remains broadly positive.

The report showed that overall retailer confidence edged down slightly from 54% to 50% in Q1 2025, highlighting strong momentum.

However, sentiment remains higher than the 10-year average.

The improved sentiment also follows positive retail sales data from Stats SA, which showed a 5.4% year-on-year increase in Q4 2024.

Growth was broad-based, with semi-durable and non-durable goods rising by 7.7% and 6.5% by the end of the year, respectively.

The BER said that additional spending power resulted from lower inflation, improved consumer confidence, and the impact of the two-pot retirement withdrawals.

With the positive environment for retailers, BusinessTech decided to compare the performance of South Africa’s largest fashion retailers on the JSE.

Our comparison will only look at JSE-listed companies where clothing is their primary business activity and makes up most of their revenue.

Woolworths, Pick n Pay, and now Shoprite all offer clothing stores. However, these retailers still make the majority of their revenue from food sales.

Pepkor

Pepkor is South Africa’s largest clothing retailer and owns Pep, Ackermans, Shoe City, Tekkie Town, and Refinery.

Listed in 2017, the company’s share price has risen by 41.52% over the last year. This means that R10000 invested a year ago would now be worth R14,152.

Pepkor recently announced that it would massively extend its store footprint by purchasing several brands from Retailability. These include Legit, Swagga, Style, and Boardmans.

The businesses to be acquired operate over 450 stores across South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Eswatini.

The group hopes the acquisitions will allow it to expand its market share in adult wear, which it believes is underrepresented, unlike the babies’, kids’, and school wear markets.

However, Edgars, Edgars Beauty, Red Square, Kelso, and Keedo businesses are not included in the transaction and will continue to be operated by Retailability.

Mr Price

Mr Price has also seen strong growth in its share price over the last year, rising by 31.80%. This means that R10000 a year ago would now be worth R13,180.

The group’s recent performance has been strong, opening its 3,000th store during the third quarter of its 2024/24 financial year.

Retail sales increased 10.6% to R14.6 billion during the period, and South African retail sales increased 10.8% to R13.7 billion.

The group’s credit sales also increased by 5.7% despite its cautiously implemented account approval framework.

Data from the National Credit Regulator shows that consumer credit applications reached an all-time high in Q3 2024.

In its interim results for the six months ending September 2024, Mr Price said demand for credit from consumers remained high as new account applications increased 32.6%, while the approval rate stood at 19%.

The Foschini Group

TFG is the third-best-performing JSE-listed clothing retailer in terms of share price, with its share price jumping by 27.50% over the last year.

This means that R10000 invested a year ago would now be worth R12,750. The latest trading update showed that group sales grew by 8.4% between September and December 2024.

This was far ahead of the 2.0% seen in the first half of the 2024/25 financial year. Gross profit also increased by 5.9% compared to the prior nine-month period.

TFG Africa’s online sales grew by 41.4% over the nine months and contributed 5.6% to overall sales. The Bash platform drove this growth.

Near the end of last year, the group also announced that it had acquired White Stuff, a UK-based fashion and lifestyle retailer.

The White Stuff brand joins TFG’s other UK-based fashion brands, such as Hobbs, Whistles, and Phase Eight.

Truworths

While the other retailers have seen strong share price growth over the last year, Truworths’ performance has been poor.

The group’s share price has only grown by 0.32% over the last year. This means that R10000 invested a year ago would now only be worth R10,032.

The company’s latest interim results for the 26 weeks ended 29 December 2024 were incredibly lackluster, with revenue only growing by 1.4% to R12.93 billion.

Group retail sales increased by 2.4%, but its cost of sales increased by 6.56%. The retailer’s profit dropped by 7.3% to R1.83 billion.

These meager results are mainly due to the underperformance of Truworths’ Africa division, which decreased by 1.1% over the period.

However, the group’s UK market is performing relatively well, with retail sales in the Office UK segment increasing by 11.3% in sterling terms to £180 million.