Pick n Pay’s online business has held onto the profitability it first reported a year ago, but turnover growth has slowed materially as the retailer chases the scale of market-leading rival Checkers Sixty60.
In Pick n Pay’s results for the 52 weeks to 1 March 2026, published on Monday, the retailer reported online turnover growth of 32.7% year on year, with its platform asap!, its offering on the Takealot Group-owned Mr D app and PnP Groceries delivering a combined 37.6% year-on-year increase. Much of the growth was attributed to the revamp of its online platforms a year prior.
“The roll-out of the next-generation asap! app in April 2025 was a key enabler of new customer acquisition and customer retention, through the introduction of integrated Smart Shopper rewards, enhanced value-added services, a redesigned, intuitive user experience, and the flexibility offered to customers to schedule their delivery and select their preferred delivery store,” Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers said in commentary alongside the results.
“The platform’s scale and capabilities have been supported by increased investment to deliver a faster shopping and payment process, as well as improved operations.”
This marks the second consecutive year that Pick n Pay’s online business has reported profitability. But the growth rate is well below the 44.6% recorded a year ago on the same 52-week basis. The slowdown was already apparent at the interim stage, with online turnover growth of 34.4% in the six months to 31 August 2025.
Like most South African retailers, Pick n Pay reports only percentage changes on key online metrics; no rand figures for revenue or profit are given. By contrast, rival Checkers Sixty60 turned over R11.9-billion in the six months to 28 December 2025, Sixty60 sales rose 34.6% in that period, with the platform now contributing 10.3% of Shoprite’s South African supermarket revenue.
Scale
The widening gap between the two retailers is most visible in scale. Asap! is now live in more than 620 stores, supported by over 2 500 drivers, after a year in which Pick n Pay added only around 20 net store integrations to the platform. By Sixty60’s last update it was fulfilling orders from roughly 875 stores using close to 10 000 Pingo drivers. Sixty60 also crossed 100 million cumulative orders.
Read: How Pick n Pay is turning to tech in retail fight
While Pick n Pay’s online business delivered a promising performance, growth across the South African retail business and the broader group was muted. Group turnover grew a reported 1% year on year to R120.3-billion – or 3.4% on a pro forma 52-week basis, given FY2025 included a 53rd trading week. Trading profit fell 4.2% to R1.69-billion. The retailer reported a headline loss of R386-million for the period, or a headline loss per share of 52.58c.
Read: Pick n Pay adds clothing to asap! app in ‘super app’ push
As part of the group’s turnaround strategy, Pick n Pay last week completed a R4.7-billion accelerated bookbuild of 12.5% of the shares in separately listed Boxer Retail, cutting its holding from 65.6% to 53.1%. The proceeds, alongside R2.4-billion of net cash already inside the Pick n Pay segment at year-end, are earmarked for the retail segment’s turnaround. — (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media