by Thinus Ferreira
The sales of TV sets in South Africa have plunged in July and August after the shocking mass looting of thousands of TV sets from shops and warehouses during the rampant looting that continued for days in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Brazen looters made off with TV sets and others goods from warehouses used by Samsung South Africa, as well as LG Electronics and others which also had their warehouses torched and burnt down; while looters also ransacked multiple shops and shopping mall stores.
According to a GfK Lighthouse market study, sales of TV sets, fridges and washing machines in South Africa fell during August compared to point-of-sale data benchmarked against the weekly sales of certain consumer goods during the first half of 2021.
Nicolet Pienaar, GfK South Africa's head of market insights, says that "While KwaZulu-Natal is seeing encouraging recovery in sales of IT and telecoms products - perhaps due to consumers wanting to keep safe and stay home - we're seeing countrywide week-on-week declines in fridge, televisions and washing machine sales".
"This is the direct result of the destruction of key manufacturing facilities as well as the ransacking of inventory from warehouses in KwaZulu-Natal, compounding existing component and product shortages due to Covid-19."
KwaZulu and Gauteng were severely underperforming in sales of certain products like TV sets compared to South Africa's other provinces.
TV set sales in South Africa showed a week-on-week decline of 11 points, and KwaZulu-Natal was 21 index points behind the average week.
Samsung South Africa has since activated its "TV Block" feature to render looted smart TV sets unusable once connected to the internet.
