Chan said Sunway Malls was off to a good start with the robust Q1 providing a strong footing for the remaining quarters.
PETALING JAYA: Sunway Malls’ sales performance for the first quarter (1Q) 2023 registered 19% growth year-on-year (y-o-y) on the back of a stronger festive quarter and healthy demand for out-of-home dining.
The mall group operator with seven physical malls and one digital mall saw its sales performance coming in above expectations with sales growth at 12% in January, 25% in February and 22% in March, respectively, it said in a statement yesterday.
Commenting on the performance, Sunway Malls & Theme Parks chief executive officer H C Chan said Sunway Malls was off to a good start with the robust 1Q providing a strong footing for the remaining quarters.
And this was achieved without the liquidity infusion from the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) easing, he added.
For the record, the retail industry had benefitted from the RM150bil EPF withdrawals over the last two years which provided stimulus to the industry.
“Certainly, this large-scale liquidity which was bigger than the individual gross domestic product of 100 countries and once-in-a-life booster was unprecedented. It is unlikely to be repeated,” said Chan.
For 1Q, Sunway Malls’ 19% sales growth y-o-y was largely driven by high growth from the travel-related, entertainment, fashion, beauty, food and beverage (F&B), health and personal care categories.
The mall group operator said as international borders opened up, pent-up demand and an uptick in travel saw the travel-related category growing 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 and personal care categories saw an improvement of 21%, respectively, while the fashion category registered a 24% rise from a year ago.
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 a 20% growth.
“There has been a breakthrough as the F&B category now emerged as one of the top 20 sales categories in Sunway Malls, which was previously dominated by non-F&B categories,” added Chan.
This is in tandem with the growing dominance of F&B categories in recent times whereby it occupies 25%-30% of the total nettable area. This trend is expected to move further heading to 35%-40% in the near future.
