Shoprite To Quit Nigeria

South Africa’s grocery retail giant Shoprite has announced it will quit the Nigerian market, reported some media on August 3, 2020. According to some of the reports, Shoprite plans to discontinue all its 25 stores in Nigeria, by a date to be announced later. Some other reports, however, say Shoprite intends to sell all or majority of its stake in the ECOWAS member state.

The withdrawal of Shoprite from Nigeria is said to probably be partly due to the country’s declining economy caused by recent plummeting oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic. The two factors particularly, have reportedly led to decreasing purchasing power of majority of Nigerians who can shop at Shoprite outlets.

Shoprite is not the first major South African retailer to quit Nigeria. Just in June 2020, clothing retailer Mr Price pulled out of the country, following the footsteps of another giant retailer Woolworths that pulled out in 2014. The problem that may be facing giant modern retailers in doing profitable business in Nigeria may be the fact that although the country is the biggest economy in Africa, its GDP per capita is still low and coupled with wide income gap. As such, majority of the people there cannot afford to buy the sort of goods offered by such retailers!

Shoprite is Africa’s largest and most sophisticated grocery retailer with over 147 000 employees and over 2934 stores in 15 countries namely South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, and Ghana. Notwithstanding, however, Shoprite revenues are said to be generated mainly in South Africa, with its international operations (Nigeria excluded) contributing only about 12%.

_________________

© 2015 - 2020 Africauptodate. All Rights Reserved