From the moment the first Clicks store opened in 1968 in St George's Mall, Cape Town, it was conceived of as a drugstore. "Our heritage has always identified us with pharmacy at our core, but for 36 years we were a drugstore without the drugs," says Clicks Group chief operating officer, Keith Warburton. Then, in 2003, after persistent lobbying from the group, new legislation was passed that allowed corporate ownership of pharmacies and the dispensing of pharmaceuticals. Shortly after this, it opened in Sea Point.
In 2013, the group opened 22 new stores to extend its footprint to 442, with 331 in-store pharmacies. At the same time, its loyalty programme passed the four-million mark in active members.
"In the past financial year, pharmacy brought in R2.9 billion to the company and it now represents approximately 26% of our business - and we're still in double-digit growth," comments Warburton.
He believes the vision of Clicks Pharmacy is to pursue its steady growth strategy. "In South Africa, we have a growing and ageing population as life expectancy improves. Private healthcare services have shown reasonable growth over the past six years - the number of private healthcare members has grown by 1.5 million and 15-20% of our population is covered by private health."
He is confident that as the pharmacy footprint expands at a rate of approximately 20 pharmacies a year, its presence in the healthcare industry will be further solidified. "The aspirations of the government's proposed National Health Insurance to provide quality health care for all South Africans will require them to work with private health facilities to some extent."
Plans include strengthening the brand and growing the market share, currently at around 18%, to approximately 30%, with corporate pharmacy share in South Africa reaching in the order of 50-60%, in line with international trends.
