In 2007, Shoprite and Pick n Pay were on par in almost every respect: They had roughly the same revenue and employed the same number of people (~60,000).

Just over a decade later, it is different. Shoprite started pulling ahead of Pick n Pay in 2008. Since then, it has rapidly been increasing its dominance.

In 2023, Shoprite reported an annual revenue of R215-billion. It is R106-billion more than Pick n Pay for the same period. Shoprite makes more than R4-billion a week in revenue, or nearly R600-million a day.

Those are eye-watering numbers. Even people inside Shoprite seem awed by the success. Shoprite CEO Pieter Engelbrecht said in a presentation: ‘I joined Shoprite in ‘97, and in those days, it took 19 years to do R10-billion in revenue. Today, we do R10-billion in revenue every 15 days.’