Black Friday month 38% up from 2023, Leisure & Entertainment industry grows 113%

South Africa-based digital payments platform Peach Payments shares weekend results

Cape Town, 3 December 2024 – The Leisure & Entertainment industry grew its share of online sales over the four-day Black Friday weekend by 113% from last year, Peach Payments says.

This comes against the backdrop of a 38% overall growth in rand value processed via the payment service provider’s platform in the month of November compared to November 2023, and a 37% increase over just the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend compared to 2023.

Says Rahul Jain, CEO and cofounder, “This is in line with the trend over the last few years of the whole of November being treated as Black Friday Month, with deals offered by merchants across the board.”

“Despite the economic pressures, the sheer volume of online payments South Africa’s economy supports is impressive. Over the four-day weekend we processed more than 1.4 million transactions, to a total value of more than R1.19bn,” says Jain.

The largest individual transaction Peach Payments processed over the weekend was for R441,000 in the Travel & Tourism industry.

Jain points out that while the vast majority of these transactions were completed through card payments, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) payments processed by Peach Payments over the weekend grew by 198% in rand value from 2023. ApplePay also showed a sharp increase of 4910% growth in rand value year-on-year, which he attributes to these payment methods becoming more important to consumers, and being easier for merchants to offer nowadays.

“This Black Friday was a good day for the ecommerce industry as a whole, in a tough year, and we have surpassed expectations,” Jain says.

Peach Payments has also, for the first time, released data on its Mauritius operations for the Black Friday weekend, where total monetary value of sales processed saw an increase of 308% over 2023. Individual transactions grew by a whopping 404%, albeit off a low base.

“We are excited to see the growth in what is still a nascent market for us. It shows the potential Mauritius has as a payments processing destination,” Jain says. “In particular, we are pleased with the growth seen in the Travel & Tourism industry on the island.”.<\/p>