Boxer on Tuesday said it was on track to meet its 2025 financial year guidance on Superstore rollout, including Pick n Pay conversions, despite delays in opening of liquor stores.
In the trading update for the 45 weeks ended 5 January, the maiden trading update post the 28 November 2024 listing, the discount retailer said liquor store openings have been impacted by delays in the granting of liquor licences for several of the planned stores.
Boxer's trading performance for the 45-week period to 5 January 2025 was in line with the guidance provided in the pre-listing statement (FY25 sales growth of 10% - 12% and like-for-like sales growth of 5% - 7%).
Sales for the period grew 11.4% and 6.7% like-for-like while sales for the 19 weeks to 5 January 2025 grew 10.8% and 5.5% like-for-like.
Boxer said the softening in sales momentum versus the 2025 financial year was the result of the business coming off a significantly stronger in the second half of the 2024 financial year base versus the first half of the 2024 financial year.
As a reminder, sales growth for the second half of the year was 18.6% (11.6% like-for-like) versus 15.9% (4.3% like-for-like) in the first half.
“Boxer is pushing to finalise the outstanding licences before financial year end, but the outcome is not fully within management's control,” it said.
“The Boxer team looks forward to driving continued growth in FY26, and is working tirelessly to execute on the planned FY26 store pipeline.”
Internal food inflation for the Period was 6.1% versus 5.3% for the first half of the 2025 financial year.
Boxer's reported internal inflation is based on the year-on-year change in average unit prices for items common to both periods, where average unit price is calculated as total like-for-like sales divided by total related product volumes.
The methodology does not normalise for mix change impacts which are highly influenced by promotional activity.
Whereas mix change does not normally have a material impact on the reported number, in the period the mix change impact was meaningful.
Normalising for mix change impacts, Boxer's inflation for the period would be 0.0%, vs. 0.5% in H1 FY25, which Boxer believes provides a truer reflection of underlying inflation for its customers. The gross profit margin achieved on a year-to date basis is in line with Boxer's expectations.
BUSINESS REPORT