South African retail trade sales are set to grow by 5.6% to a massive R1.531 trillion in 2025. Sales are projected to increase by 5.8% in 2024. Real, i.e. inflation adjusted sales, are expected to grow by 3.7% in 2025 after a 2.5% increase in 2024. Retail inflation reduced in 2025 compared to 2024.
This is why real sales grew faster in 2025 than 2024, while nominal sales grew slower than 2024.
For national accounts purposes, all that matters is real sales, because we measure economic growth in real terms. Since domestic consumption is the largest category of economic activity, the 2025 growth implies that 2025 growth will be higher than 2024 growth.
Six of the seven types of retailers showed positive year-on-year growth rates in 2025. The exception was the sale of food, beverages and tobacco in specialized stores. This decline may be due to the increase in illegal trade in alcohol and cigarettes which is not being controlled. Statistics South Africa data.
December 2025 sale
The importance of December sales for retailers is shown by the fact that they were up 42% between September and December. Clothing retailers were most dependent on Christmas sales. They more than doubled their sales with an increase of 123.8%.
Hardware retailers were the least dependent on festive season sales as they grew by only 7.7%.
possibilities
Economists spend a lot of their time understanding retail trends. This is because domestic consumption is very important to the national accounts. Statistics South Africa publishes monthly data with a six-week lag.
The National Treasury in its November 2025 medium-term budget policy statement had projected domestic consumption growth to 2.6% in 2025 from 1.0% in 2024. Growth was expected to slow to 1.6% in 2026.
reduction in officers unemployment rate From 31.4% in Q4 2025 to 31.9% in Q4 2024, which could prompt the National Treasury to revise down its 2026 forecast. New economic growth projections will be presented in the Budget on 25 February 2026.