Australian pharmacy retail, by the numbers

Start with the biggest number. Chemist Warehouse's network retail sales reached $10.3 billion for the 12 months to 30 June 2025, up 14 percent with like-for-like growth of 11 percent, according to Sigma Healthcare's 2025 annual results. The same release counts 881 stores in Australia across the Chemist Warehouse, Amcal and Discount Drug Stores brands, a further 86 stores internationally, and 35 new Chemist Warehouse stores opened in the year.

Wesfarmers Health, formed in March 2022 with the acquisition of API, lists 419 Priceline community pharmacies and 68 non-pharmacy Priceline stores on its corporate site as at July 2026, alongside more than 90 Clear Skincare clinics and more than 50 Soul Pattinson Chemist stores. TerryWhite Chemmart opened its 600th network pharmacy in July 2024 after adding 100 pharmacies in the prior 24 months under EBOS Group's ownership, per an EBOS Group announcement, and stood at more than 620 pharmacies by December 2025, per Inside FMCG.

Add those up and roughly 2,000 pharmacy doors sit behind three head office relationships. That concentration is the defining fact of the channel for a supplier: a small number of buyers control most of the shelf, and a single range review decision moves hundreds of stores at once. The review discipline works the same way as grocery, with categories re-decided on a calendar that comes around roughly every six months, so missing the window means waiting for the next one.

The growth has not slowed since that annual result. Sigma Healthcare's results for the half-year ended 31 December 2025 show revenue of $5.5 billion, up 14.9 percent, normalised EBIT of $582.9 million, up 18.7 percent, and Australian Chemist Warehouse-branded store sales up 17.2 percent with like-for-like sales up 15.0 percent. The listed entity housing the network had a market capitalisation of about $33.7 billion at 19 July 2026, per StockAnalysis.com, which makes the retailer worth more than almost every company that supplies it.

The expansion plan is explicit. Per AAP News reporting on those half-year results, Sigma is ultimately aiming for 900 Chemist Warehouse stores, 300 Amcal pharmacies and more than 150 Discount Drug Stores over roughly 15 years at the current opening run rate. The brand also carries unusual consumer weight for a discounter: Chemist Warehouse entered Roy Morgan's top 20 most trusted brands in Australia at number 20 for the 12 months to March 2026, the only pharmacy in the ranking.

One honest limit on the store numbers. Sigma's own FY25 release refers to '588 CW franchise stores across Australia' at June 2025, while AAP's coverage of the December 2025 half-year reports 550 domestic Chemist Warehouse stores after 13 openings in the half. Those two published figures do not reconcile and we could not resolve the gap from the sources, so treat any single Chemist Warehouse store count as approximate. The direction is not in doubt; the precise count is.

Wesfarmers Health reported revenue of $3,276 million for the half-year ended 31 December 2025, up 8.4 percent, and earnings before tax of $38 million, an EBT margin of 1.2 percent, per the Wesfarmers 2026 half-year results presentation. The retail side is moving: the same presentation shows Priceline network sales up 14.4 percent including dispensary, 13 new Priceline Pharmacy stores opened in the half, and the Sister Club loyalty program at 10 million members, which Wesfarmers describes as Australia's largest health and beauty loyalty program.

Sit with that 1.2 percent for a moment, because it explains how the channel behaves. A business running that thin has almost no room to absorb a cost increase, a late delivery or a failed promotion, so the pressure moves upstream to suppliers. That is the structural reason trade spend asks commonly run 10 to 25 percent of gross sales, retailer margins sit roughly between 25 and 45 percent by category, and chargebacks of 1 to 5 percent of invoice value are enforced rather than waved through. None of it is personal. It is what a thin-margin middle does to survive.

The half also carried a warning about counterparty risk. Infinity Group, a Priceline franchisee with 73 stores, took on significant debt and became unable to pay suppliers and creditors, and Wesfarmers Health appointed receivers to select Infinity-owned pharmacies with administrators over the remainder, per the same results briefing, though the stores continue to trade. If you supply a franchise network, know whose paper your purchase orders are on. An invoice to a struggling franchisee is not an invoice to Wesfarmers.

TerryWhite Chemmart is the quieter growth story. The network opened its 600th pharmacy, in Bayswater, Victoria, in July 2024, having added 100 pharmacies in the prior 24 months under EBOS Group's ownership, per an EBOS Group announcement, and reached more than 620 pharmacies by December 2025, per Inside FMCG.

The December 2025 announcement matters for a second reason. TerryWhite Chemmart is rolling out 200 in-pharmacy digital screens across its first 100 stores by early 2026, extending to all of its more than 620 pharmacies within a year, as part of its TWC Connect retail media network, per Inside FMCG. Retail media is becoming a standard line in pharmacy trade negotiations, which means the co-op conversation increasingly includes screen campaigns as well as catalogue and shelf. Budget for it inside your trade spend model, not on top of it.

The older mechanic has not gone away either. Chemist Warehouse's catalogue program won the top prize at the Australasian Catalogue Association awards in the category for retailers distributing to audiences of more than 3.5 million, with the association citing a cost entry point of over 19 cents, per Inside Retail. That figure dates to 2017 and is the most recent openly verifiable one, so treat it as an indication of scale rather than a current cost. The practical point stands: promotional participation is usually part of the deal in this channel, and it is funded from your side of the pricing waterfall.

Growth headlines do not change the supplier maths, they raise the stakes of getting it wrong. The channel's totals are large, but your slice of them is decided by the same figures as any Australian retail ranging: trade spend commonly 10 to 25 percent of gross sales, retailer margin roughly 25 to 45 percent depending on category, chargebacks of 1 to 5 percent of invoice value when compliance fails, and a first purchase order that typically lands one to six months after a ranging win.

The scale cuts both ways. A single Chemist Warehouse or Priceline yes can move your volumes by an order of magnitude, and the same yes can open a working capital hole your cash flow cannot carry, because production is funded months before payment arrives and EDI builds take months, not weeks. In FY25, 871 Australian retail businesses hit insolvency for the first time, and cash flow timing, rather than demand, is often what breaks a growing supplier. Model the cash curve of the purchase order you are hoping for before you pitch for it.

Concede the obvious first: nobody can promise you a pharmacy ranging. The buyer decides, every time, at Chemist Warehouse, Priceline and TerryWhite Chemmart just as at the supermarkets, and any partner who guarantees shelf space is describing their marketing rather than the process. What you control is whether you walk into the review with arithmetic the buyer can defend internally.

Our team at Built for Retail has ranged brands across Chemist Warehouse, Woolworths, Coles and Priceline as the agent, and past rangings never promise future ones. If the modelling is the part you have not done, the Retail-Readiness Sprint builds it at a fixed fee of $15,000 for a single retailer scope or $25,000 across multiple retailers, about four weeks, covering your real trade spend, pricing waterfall, review calendar and compliance gap list. You keep the model either way, and sometimes its answer is not yet. The Sprint is indicative and does not guarantee ranging.