As the year draws to a close, it is customary to look back and take stock of what has been. Pick n Pay has done just that, unwrapping how South Africans have shopped its stores and online platforms over 2025, thanks to its abundance of Smart Shopper data. Here’s a look at some of the numbers:

• • R7bn in savings earned by Smart Shoppers since Jan 2025
  • 2 million shoppers registered as Smart Shoppers over the same period
  • Friday is the day Smart Shoppers prefer to shop
  • In the race for swipes, Pick n Pay Tembisa achieved the highest in the country, followed by Pick n Pay Promenade (Cape Town) and Pick n Pay Hyper North (Durban)
  • Cape Town took the regional title for the highest average rand savings per Smart Shopper
  • Asap! achieved 1.7 million new installs and drove 44% YoY growth in on-demand sales. The most loyal asap! customer – also in Cape Town – placed 327 orders since Jan

News from the pharma industry is that the Department of Health has set the maximum 2026 single exit price (SEP) for medicines at +1.47%, less than half of the +3.2% increase the sector was anticipating and that, it argued, was required to keep up with inflation. Led by the Pharmaceutical Task Group (PTG) – an umbrella body representing 90% of the market by value – the industry has expressed disappointment and concern at the decision. The SEP essentially represents factory gate prices of pharmaceuticals, and because it is fixed by law, manufacturers cannot simply raise their prices whenever their costs go up due to, e.g., inflation, fuel costs or a weaker rand. This year’s increase is significantly lower than the last few years (5.25% in 2025 | 6.79% in 2024 | 5.01% in 2023) and came as a surprise to the industry, which has always appealed for consistency when applying pricing increases. Chairman of the PTG, Aspen’s Stavros Nicolaou, has said that a request has been made to the health department to reconsider the decision, since it has the ability to grant an increase before the effective date on 1 January.