Choppies Enterprise Ltd. plans to close its supermarkets across several African nations in a bid to focus on its growth in Botswana, where it is listed.
According to Chief Executive Officer Ramachandran Ottapathu, the enterprise will close supermarkets in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique because they aren’t profitable. It will add stores in Botswana this year instead and explore new markets.
“Zambia is self-sustaining and growing slowly and in Zimbabwe we’ll look at the market and how it goes,” Ottapathu said in a phone interview. “Namibia, we need to grow.”
This is coming at a time when Shoprite also announced that it was considering exiting the Nigerian market, not too long after Mr. Price had towed that route.
