Dis-Chem says revenue up 16%
The company's margins, however, were impacted by high volumes of low-margin sales of Covid-19 related products, as South Africa entered the third wave of the pandemic and the government imposed restrictions that impacted normal sales.
The revenue improvement also came despite trading at some of the stores of Dis-Chem, which runs the second-largest chain of pharmacies in the country, being halted due to week-long unrest in the country last month.
Around R40m worth of products were either damaged or stolen and around R70m worth of trading was lost due to the unrest, it said, adding that this would impact its total income by approximately R15m.
Two stores out of the five that were hit have been reopened and are trading, while another two are expected to reopen by the end of September 2021, the pharmacy chain said.