The second ‘State of the Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise (SMME) in South Africa’ report found that almost one-third (32.1%) of small businesses surveyed have been operating for more than two decades.

This finding points to a persistent challenge for the country’s small-business sector – the fact that even established businesses that have survived for years, and often decades, do not consistently scale up into larger employers.

The report is published by the Shoprite Group and based on research conducted by World Wide Worx among 800 SMMEs.

The 2026 report notes that the lack of scale comes despite signs of growing confidence among the businesses surveyed.

Some 42% describe themselves as growing and expanding, compared with 33% in the 2025 survey, while 85% expect moderate to high growth in the year ahead.

More than half (53.6%) reported net profit after tax above 10%.

“These findings are encouraging, particularly given the difficult operating environment SMMEs have navigated,” says Shoprite Group enterprise and government relations executive Maude Modise.

“The challenge now is to help businesses convert that resilience into sustainable growth and greater economic impact.”

The report indicates that access to customers remains a major growth constraint.

Access to markets is the most commonly identified requirement for growth, cited by 56.9% of respondents, ahead of financial support, at 39.5%, followed by digital tools and platforms at 29.7%.

When asked specifically about the role of support from large corporations, 78.1% of respondents rated regular orders as important or very important, ahead of mentorship, grants, training, technical skills and loans.

These findings suggest that securing reliable customers and repeat business remains a key hurdle for SMMEs trying to move into their next stage of growth.

This places procurement and access to established supply chains of large companies at the centre of the small-business growth discussion.

“An order from a large customer can create a significant opportunity, but a small business also needs the working capital and capacity to deliver on it,” says World Wide Worx CEO Arthur Goldstuck.

“Market access, appropriate finance and practical business support need to work together if we want to help more SMMEs scale.”

Some 70.8% of respondents say improved access to funding would increase their competitiveness, yet 90.9% currently rely on their own resources and personal networks.

Only 9.7% use bank loans, while 57.4% have never applied for funding.

The gap is particularly pronounced when it comes to private investment.

Only 2.1% currently use private investors, while 46.2% identify private investment as a funding mechanism they would like to use.

Shoprite's SMME Programme
The Shoprite Group says it supports SMMEs through Shoprite Next Capital, a division focused on empowering and growing local, commercially viable small businesses.

The group’s approach combines access to its retail market with working capital and practical support across areas that include product development, training, data insights and growth planning.

Shoprite Next Capital has invested R30-million in enterprise and supplier development this year, and also onboarded 13 new suppliers, bringing the number of supported SMMEs to 84.

These businesses contributed 469 locally produced products to the retail market.

A further R10.7-billion in working capital has been provided to 120 suppliers.

This support has seen businesses such as Gauteng fresh-produce supplier Urban Grown grow by approximately 45% over four years, allowing it to now employ 34 people.