Retailer Mr Price’s telecoms segment and e-commerce exploded in the 53 weeks ended 3 April 2021, lifting the company in a tough year.
The group’s telecoms segment ballooned by 11.6% to R862 million, which the group says was driven by cellular growing 35.9%.
Mr Price says the double-digit sales growth in cellular (handsets and accessories) and intentional mix changes in the mobile virtual network operator contributed to the total telecoms gross profit margin increasing 30 basis points.
Similarly, in the period under review, Mr Price’s e-commerce boomed as online sales grew 64.1%, more than doubling in Mr Price Apparel and Mr Price Sport.
"The group's calculated investment in its online offering over the last nine years continues to generate profitability, particularly in a year when this channel's importance to customers significantly increased. Our platforms have delivered superior performance in generating traffic and customer experience," comments group CEO Mark Blair.
The retailer says for the period, online traffic increased 65.7%, with 86.4% of this traffic generated from mobile devices.
Mr Price Apparel had the highest market share of traffic across all omni-channel apparel retail brands during the period.
According to the company, the Mr Price app, which houses its three red cap divisions, remains the number one ranked fashion shopping app in South Africa, according to Google app rankings.
Mr Price says steady investment in the platform has enabled significantly larger order volumes to be processed, which the group believes will continue to grow in the years ahead.
“During the year, the average number of orders per day doubled, and the group processed an order every 58 seconds, increasing to every 11 seconds over the Black Friday week.”
Looking at the main profit gauge, headline earnings per share (HEPS), Mr Price says HEPS increased 1.9% to 1 049.0c. On this same basis, it notes, the second half of the year diluted HEPS of 672.0c was 13.2% higher than the corresponding period last year.
Mr Price says total revenue from continuing operations decreased 2.9% to R22.3 billion, with retail sales decreasing 2.4% (comparable stores -4.6%) to R21.2 billion, which it says is an acceptable performance considering the lost sales in April and May 2020.
“These results are commendable when you consider that we were forced to close all stores in April 2020 and yet maintained profitability at a similar level to the previous year. FY2021 was a year like no other, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the way our business model has proven its resilience in the midst of extreme uncertainty and how our people adapted to the unprecedented demands placed on them by the pandemic,” says Blair.
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