Dis-Chem has reported a 10% increase in revenue in the 24 weeks to mid-February and has gained market share amid the success of the rollout of its new rewards programme.
Group revenue increased 10.1% with retail revenue rising 9.5% and wholesale revenue jumping 15.7%, it said in a statement on Friday. External wholesale revenue increased 13.7%.
CEO Rui Morais said the group experienced a “solid trading performance”, notably due to the launch of its reimagined loyalty programme, Better Rewards, in October last year.
“By applying technology, data and deep customer insights, the X, bigly labs team continues to challenge the status quo by further evolving the Better Rewards programme,” he said.
This is part of the group’s broader push to grow beyond its traditional pharmacy operations to become an integrated healthcare business and to provide cheaper, easier access to healthcare services.
The pharmacy chain operator’s traditional loyalty model has been replaced with a data-led system that integrates rewards across retail purchases, clinic visits and financial services.
“One of our key objectives is to increase the average level of discount by driving the increase of boost penetration, a key design element of the programme, as well as identifying new funding channels across our ecosystem to further invest into the programme, ensuring that we have the best-value and most representative healthcare retail offering in South Africa,” Morais said.
In the 17 weeks since launch, Dis-Chem has returned R410m in savings directly to customers, it said.
“The market share gains we’ve seen have been particularly pleasing and stand as a proof point of innovation in action,” he said.
Retail revenue for the 17 weeks under the Better Rewards programme increased 10.4% compared with the corresponding period, with volume growth of 5.2%.
Under the Better Rewards programme, pharmacy revenue grew 13.7%, driven by increasing pharmacy boost engagement and high demand for GLP-1 drugs, he said.
Revenue growth of participating Better Rewards brands increased 19.4% with volume growth of 20.9%.
“The consistency of an always-on, health-relevant, lowest-price basket is driving increased shopping frequency. Nonparticipating Better Rewards brands are benefiting from the halo effect of the increase in shopper trips,” he said.
The number of new shoppers who had not engaged with the Dis-Chem brand in the 12 months before the launch of Better Rewards increased by 550,000 shoppers, the group said.
According to NielsenIQ, in the 12 weeks to January 25 for the group’s core retail categories Dis-Chem achieved volume growth of 8% against a market volume growth of 1.3%, increasing its market share across all core categories by 0.8 percentage points.
The group operates 355 retail stores, comprising 313 Dis-Chem Pharmacy stores and 42 Dis-Chem Baby City stores.
The Local Choice (TLC) revenue increased 14.2% and independent pharmacy revenue rose 13.4%. The group had 281 TLC franchise stores at period-end, up from 230 a year ago. TLC operates as a subsidiary and franchise model for independent pharmacies in the group.
Dis-Chem’s share price closed 3.91% higher at R38 on Friday, valuing the group at R32.7bn. It will release annual results on May 29.
Update: February 22 2026
This story has new information.
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