Clicks opens 1 000th store even as increasing competition dents sales

Health and beauty retailer Clicks has reported a "resilient" performance for the six months to end-February 2026. Group turnover increased by 7.4% to R24.9 billion. Retail turnover grew 5.4%, while distribution turnover was up by 13.0%. Diluted headline earnings per share (HEPS) rose 8.1% to 653 cents. Clicks announced a dividend of 258 cents per share, an increase of 8.4%. In the face of rising competition, the Group increased its store footprint to 1 003, describing the opening of its 1 000th outlet as a "significant milestone". The well-established Clicks ClubCard grew active membership by 800 000 to 12.9 million, with card holders contributing 83.7% of sales. Group CEO Bertina Engelbrecht said the consumer environment is expected to remain under significant pressure for the second half of the financial year, as rising fuel prices and associated inflationary pressures constrain household spending However, Clicks still plans to open 40 – 50 new stores and 40 – 50 new pharmacies in the 2026 financial year. In conversation with Stephen Grootes, Engelbrecht highlights the impact on retail turnover of delays in the implementation of the warehouse management system (WMS) at the Clicks distribution centre in Cape Town. This reduced product availability in Western Cape and Eastern Cape stores, particularly over the festive season. "You can see a bit of muted performance in terms of the top-line growth in the retail business, but if you think about the impact of the WMS systems implementation over the festive period - that dented Clicks topline growth by 0.9%. But for that, Clicks would actually have been up 6,3%". "I'm not discounting the competition aspect because I do think we could have done better... but we had really pleasing growth in our core retail pharmacy market share, in personal care which is heavily competed going up against every single retailer, and we defended market share in the competitive baby and haircare segments." Scroll up to the audio player to hear more from the Clicks Group CEO