Walmart-owned general merchandise retailer Massmart will look to deepen its presence over the next two years in Africa, where it plans to increase trading space by about 26%. This includes opening 11 new stores on the continent beyond South Africa in the next two years. Speaking at the group's results presentation on Thursday, CEO Guy Hayward said Massmart was "pursuing Africa for growth and diversification", focusing on the 13 countries it is already in and bringing its Game, Builder's Warehouse and Masscash brands to these territories. "We are going to trial some smaller stores just to get away from being dependent on the shopping-mall owners," said Hayward. "When [stores] are smaller we can get them closer to our customers and possibly at lower costs as well. We believe that categories we sell into the sub-Saharan market will capture about 60% of retail opportunity."
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