{"id":596176,"date":"2026-08-26T03:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T03:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/596176\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T03:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T03:52:09","slug":"woolworths-posts-1-14bn-profit-in-cost-of-living-crisis-but-ceo-says-its-not-thanks-to-rising-shelf-prices-woolworths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/596176\/","title":{"rendered":"Woolworths posts $1.14bn profit in cost-of-living crisis \u2013 but CEO says it\u2019s not thanks to rising shelf prices | Woolworths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woolworths has reported a $175m surge in net profit to $1.14bn, with profit margins rising and the Ooshies toys promotion boosting sales.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s market value surged $2bn and briefly exceeded $50bn, its highest value since 2021, as investors bought in after it reported annual results on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Sales in the Australian supermarkets division rose 4.6% in the year to June, from $51.49bn to $53.85bn. The profit margin on earnings rose from to 5.5%, from 5.3%.<\/p>\n

Its pre-tax earnings rose by $232m, to surpass $2.95bn.<\/p>\n

Online sales rose 15.9% across the company, as it rolled out more in-store pick up and on demand options across the country.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Woolworths and Coles have previously faced criticism for fattening profit margins during periods of high living costs<\/a> at the expense of higher prices for its shoppers and low returns for its suppliers.<\/p>\n

Inflation rose 3.8% in the year to June.<\/p>\n

Chief executive Amanda Bardwell said Woolworths had not increased its profit margin by lifting shelf prices.<\/p>\n

She said it had instead come from more customers buying more at Woolworths.<\/p>\n

Shoppers had become permanently focused on low prices as cost-of-living pressures became engrained, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve moved beyond a temporary phase into a new reality of entrenched value seeking,\u201d Bardwell told reporters.<\/p>\n

Big W returned to profit in the year to June, with pre-tax earnings at $64m, up from a $33m loss the year before. But the department store chain has seen its sales decline in the last eight weeks, despite its inclusion in the popular Ooshies program.<\/p>\n

Woolworths attributed the drop to \u201congoing cost-of-living pressures on households, particularly budget customers and weaker trade in the Everyday business\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Ooshies campaign, where shoppers were given a blind bag containing a plastic Disney character for every $30 they spent, won over supermarket customers.<\/p>\n

Supermarket sales had accelerated in the eight weeks since the start of July, growing 7.6% above the prior year. Ooshies alone accounted for up to 2% of growth, or a boost of over $120m, assuming monthly sales averaged roughly $4bn.<\/p>\n

The latest promotion, running from mid-July to mid-August, had hurt sales at competitor Coles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bardwell said the campaign had attracted shoppers who wouldn\u2019t normally visit Woolworths but she said Ooshies would not be offered year-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t think we need to be running them all the time,\u201d Bardwell said.<\/p>\n

Woolworths\u2019 results outshone Coles, which on Tuesday reported net profit rose 1% to $1.09bn in the year to June. Its supermarkets also increased their profit margin on earnings, from 5.3% to 5.7%.<\/p>\n

Woolworths reported its \u201cstockloss\u201d including theft had declined in 2026 but it was still looking into the technology.<\/p>\n

Bardwell said the company had reported 7,000 incidents of violence in one year and was still running a \u201ctechnical test\u201d of the facial recognition technology in its support office in New Zealand with staff consent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Woolworths has reported a $175m surge in net profit to $1.14bn, with profit margins rising and the Ooshies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-596176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}