Pick n Pay has unexpectedly warned investors that its headline loss per share for the current financial year will widen by more than 20% compared with the prior year, blaming a “highly constrained” trading environment over the critical Black Friday period that dragged down second-half performance.

Its share price tanked, and was last trading down 9% at 10.55am in Johannesburg.

The retailer said turnover for the 48 weeks to 1 February 2026 grew by just 3.2%, with like-for-like sales up 3.4%. But the headline numbers mask a sharp slowdown in the second half of the period, with group turnover rising only 1.3% over the final 22 weeks – a significant deceleration from the 4.9% growth reported for the first half.

The culprit, according to the company, was a weak November that coincided with the extended Black Friday trading window. Pick n Pay said the soft performance “reflects general market conditions as reported elsewhere”, with like-for-like sales in its South African supermarkets actually declining in November before returning to growth in December and improving further in January.

The Black Friday disappointment hit the clothing division particularly hard. Pick n Pay Clothing standalone stores, which had delivered like-for-like growth of 7.5% in the first half, swung to a 6.8% like-for-like decline over the final 22 weeks.

One bright spot was online sales, which surged 31.8% for the period, driven by continued momentum in the Pick n Pay asap! delivery service and its grocery offering on the Mr D app. However, the online channel, while growing rapidly, was not enough to offset the broader weakness in store-based trading.

Losses widen

The net result is that Pick n Pay now expects its headline loss per share for the full year to March 2026 to worsen by more than 12.31c from the 61.54c/share loss reported in the prior year. The company said the deeper loss represents a retreat from previous guidance that the full-year trading loss would be “broadly in line” with the prior period.

Pick n Pay acknowledged the result was “a disappointment” but sought to reassure investors that operational improvements are being made and that its turnaround plan remains on track. The retailer has been closing or converting underperforming company-owned supermarkets as part of a broader restructuring effort, a process it said is now “largely completed”.