IOI Properties Group Berhad recorded a marginal increase of 3% in revenue to RM1.93 billion for the nine months of financial year 2023 compared to the RM1.87 billion revenue recorded a year earlier. Though revenue in the property development segment declined by 10%, the group said the contraction was offset by the performance observed in the property investment segment which improved by 44%, and the hospitality and leisure segment which gained 126% against the preceding year’s corresponding period.
The profit before tax surged 86% to RM1.32 billion from RM708.7 million, whereby the property development segment remains the Group’s biggest contributor.
The property development segment achieved sales with contracts exchanged of RM1.37 billion for 9M FY2023. Local projects contributed RM1.14 billion, which is 83% of the total sales while overseas projects from China and Singapore contributed RM226.5 million, or 17% of the total sales.
Dato’ Voon Tin Yow CEO of IOI Properties highlighted, “In addition to the good take-up rate on our recent launches, the Group’s completed inventories have reduced by RM543.9 million over the last nine months. The Group remains focused on reducing completed inventories further with upcoming promotional sales campaigns.”
“Our property investment segment continues to outperform, demonstrated by the strong anchor tenants secured and the influx of specialty stores in the pipeline for IOI City Mall 2. This will augur well for Malaysia’s largest shopping mall,” added Dato’ Voon. Malaysia has surpassed its initial target of attracting 9.2 million tourists in 2022 by recording 10.1 million arrivals. With enhanced air connectivity and robust promotional efforts, Tourism Malaysia is optimistic of achieving its target of 16.1 million tourist arrivals in 2023. The increase in tourist arrivals has led to marked improvements in the average room rates and occupancy rates of our hotel operations. Our hospitality and leisure segment is poised to perform better, supported by the pickup in tourism-related activities.
In China, there are increasing enquiries on our developments at IOI Palm City and IOI Palm International Parkhouse at Xiamen despite the overall sluggish property sector. Improvement in footfall into our show gallery have been registered and given the renewed interest, the Group will concentrate on driving sales of our completed units. As the property sector is a key pillar of the Chinese economy, more supportive measures such as scrapping restrictions on home purchases, cutting
mortgage rates, and facilitating funding access to developers are being implemented by the Chinese government to revive the sector.
Over in Singapore, property prices continue to rise in contrast with the regional decline, and on 27 April 2023, the Singapore government increased the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (“ABSD”) rate as a cooling measure to moderate the growth. The measure is targeted to promote a sustainable property market and to prioritise housing for owner-occupiers where the increase in ABSD rate is expected to affect a small percentage of residential property transactions.
Dato Voon remarked, “There will be some impact on our upcoming Marina Bay project as foreign demand may be dampened but nevertheless, the development which is situated at a strategic location should still be able to command resilient demand from the local Singaporean buyers who have strong spending and purchasing power, underpinned by Singapore’s robust economy.”
