Sunway Malls sales performance beat expectations and registered 19% growth for Q1 2023 year-on-year on the back of a stronger festive quarter and healthy demand for out-of-home dining.
The mall group operator which runs seven physical malls and one digital mall saw its sale performance come in above expectations with sales growth at 12% in January, 25% in February, and 22% in March respectively.
Commenting on the performance, HC Chan, CEO of Sunway Malls & Theme Parks said “Certainly, Sunway Malls is off to a good start with a strong Q1 providing a strong footing for the remaining quarters. And this is achieved without the liquidity infusion from EPF easing.”
The group added that the retail industry had benefitted from the RM150 billion EPF withdrawals over the last two years which provided stimulus to the industry.
“Certainly, this large-scale liquidity which was bigger than the individual GDP of 100 countries and a once-in-a-life booster was unprecedented. It is unlikely to be repeated,” added Chan.
For the mentioned quarter, Sunway Malls’ 19% sales growth y-o-y was largely driven by high growth from the travel-related, entertainment, fashion, beauty, F&B, health & personal care categories.
As international borders opened up, pent-up demand and an uptick in travel saw the travel-related category grow the highest at 178% among Sunway Malls’ retail categories.
Large blockbusters, more movie releases, and healthy demand for leisure pushed entertainment up by 52%.
The beauty, as well as health & personal care categories, saw an improvement of 21% respectively while the fashion category registered 24% up from a year ago.
Within the fashion category, better-than-expected performance by men’s fashion saw a growth of 94%. Footwear also performed well with a growth rate of 34%. Other commendable growth were the unisex fashion at 27%, bags at 26%, children wear at 25% and ladies fashion at 24%. The performance was largely attributed to strong festive buying.
Similarly, in the F&B category, demand for out-of-home dining and premium dining accelerated growth for family dining with an uptick of 40% while casual dining came in with 20% growth.
In spite of the current and future headwinds, Sunway Malls continues its expansion mode with development of more retail space. The mall group will undergo 800,000 sqft retail space AEI (Asset Enhancement Initiative) exercise in Sunway Pyramid and Sunway Carnival. Sunway also announced plans to build a mall with a retail space of 1 million sqft in Sunway City Ipoh which is expected to be completed by 2025.
