Africa’s Largest Clothing Retailer Taps Booming Phone Market

  • Pepkor is selling as many as 1 million pre-pay devices a month
  • Large informal trading market uses mobile phones for payments

A Pepkor mobile phone outlet.

Source: Pepkor Holdings Ltd.

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Africa’s largest clothing retailer is expanding rapidly in one of its newest segments -- the sale of affordable mobile phones.

Pepkor Holdings Ltd.’s new chief executive officer, Pieter Erasmus, wants to build on the 12 million devices sold by the Cape Town-based company in the year through September -- equivalent to 70% of the units offloaded on a pay-as-you-go basis in the whole South African market.