South African retailing giant, Shoprite International Limited, has announced its plans to leave the Nigerian market.

It revealed that it will now consider the future potential sale of the majority stake of its Nigerian holdings, Retail Supermarkets Nigeria Limited in its company’s operational and voluntary trading update that was published this morning.

Although the total number of sales of the company has increased in the past year, the sales were only generated from stores inside of South Africa. The retail stores outside, including Nigeria, have been struggling due to increased tariffs.

The non-South Africa sales declined by 1.4 percent in the year under review. While the company blamed this decline on the lockdown announced in several African countries due to the coronavirus pandemic, it has decided to move forward with its exit plans.

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“The Board has decided to initiate a formal process to consider the potential sale of all, or a majority stake, in Retail Supermarkets Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Shoprite International Limited. As such, Retail Supermarkets Nigeria Limited may be classified as a discontinued operation when Shoprite reports its results for the year.

"Any further updates will be provided to the market at the appropriate time,” 

“Second half constant currency sales growth of 6.3% was significantly impacted by lockdown regulations across the 14 African countries in which we trade.

"Lockdown restrictions pertaining to store closures; social distancing; transport restrictions; the movement of people; trading hours; workforce limitations and trade in alcohol impacted various regions to differing degrees at different times.” The report stated.

Shoprite opened its first store in Nigeria in December 2005 and now has a total of 26 stores across eight states in the country including Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.