Sales at Country Road Group have softened in the lead-up to Christmas 2025, according to its parent company Woolworths Holding Limited in South Africa.
In a statement to market, the South African company said the fashion group – which includes Country Road, Witchery, Trenery, Politix and Mimco – saw strong sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. However, this was short-lived, with December retail trading performance being “softer than anticipated”.
As a result, WHL reported that Country Road Group’s sales growth averaged 1 per cent for the last seven weeks to December 28, 2025.
“Although trading conditions in Australia and New Zealand appear to be gradually improving, the retail sector remains challenging and highly promotionally driven,” WHL reported.
Despite the slack end to the year, Country Road Group sales for the 26 weeks to December 28 were up by 2.3 per cent, which is slightly down from the 3.3 per cent sales recorded in the first 19 weeks to November 9.
On a comparable store basis, CRG sales lifted by 2.5 per cent.
“The Country Road, Witchery and Politix brands traded ahead of the prior period, benefiting from the repositioning of the brand portfolio and the successful restructuring of CRG's operating model, which continues to be further embedded in the business,” WHL noted.
In the 26-week period, net trading space increased by 0.2 per cent compared to the same time last year, with the online contribution to sales broadly unchanged at 27.2 per cent.
The slight slip in sales growth for CRG comes as the group CEO Steven Cook announced the launch of a marketplace offering on the Country Road and Witchery websites, with Mimco, Politix and Trenery to follow suit this year.
Including WHL’s Woolworths department in South Africa, total sales for the overarching company lifted by 5.4 per cent in the 26 weeks to December 28. It was also up by 6.1 per cent on a constant currency basis.
WHL noted there was positive sales growth recorded in all segments of the business, “notwithstanding the constrained macroeconomic environment across both South Africa and Australia.”
WHL’s announcement also noted that the inclusion of the profit from the sale of the David Jones Bourke Street property in early 2025 (in the prior period), has negatively impacted the year-on-year growth rate for the current period's earnings per share ("EPS") by virtue of base effect.
The company noted that the profit on sale was adjusted for in calculating headline EPS ("HEPS") and adjusted diluted HEPS ("adHEPS"). In the 26 weeks to December 29, 2024, WHL’s EPS was 245.4 cents per share, in South African Rand currency. This has dropped somewhere between 159.5 to 171.8 cents in the 26 weeks to December 28, 2025.