KUALA LUMPUR: Sunway Malls, Malaysia’s largest mall owner-operator by total retail space and number of properties, is confident of sustaining the 5% growth achieved in 2024, despite recent downward revisions to Malaysia’s GDP forecast by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
Sunway Malls CEO Chan Hoi Choy said yesterday the group has consistently outperformed both industry growth and Malaysia’s GDP growth over the past two decades.
“Our mall business is closely tied to the country’s GDP growth, with millions of transactions recorded annually. Whether customers spend RM5 or RM5,000, the data across millions of transactions clearly reflects consumption trends.
“Despite a challenging outlook, we are confident of achieving 5% growth again in 2025. Historically, Sunway Malls has consistently outpaced national GDP growth, and we expect to continue this trend,” he said during a press conference at the unveiling of its 10th mall.
Chan added that malls, like banks, are an economic parameter of the nation’s health because banks give out hundreds of billions of dollars and similarly for malls, where billions of dollars are spent.
“We also reflect the economic health of the nation. So banks and malls, I think, have that similarity that measures the economic health of the nation. Obviously for Sunway Malls, we always like to outperform the GDP growth.”
Sunway Malls reported a full year growth of 5% in 2024 year-on-year. The year-end festivities saw December’s sales performance growing by 5.6% y-o-y despite a shorter school holiday season. The momentum continued to the Q1’25, with Chinese New Year and school holidays.
The mall group is also expecting the
re-opening of a fully refurbished Sunway Carnival Mall in Seberang Jaya, Penang, in May.
Sunway Malls’ strongest hold remains to be in Klang Valley, forming 67.2% of the mall group’s total net lettable area.
The Southern region currently forms 15.8% and the Northern region 17%.
In the pipeline, Sunway is also building another two malls slated to complete in 2027 – Sunway Pier with a retail space of 400,000 sqft in Port Klang, and Sunway Ipoh Mall with a retail space of 1.2 million sqft in Sunway City Ipoh.
At the unveiling of its 10th mall – Sunway Square Mall – Chan said it has achieved a 95% leasing rate ahead of its opening in September.
The new mall spans 300,000 square feet across four retail floors, housing over 150 shops and 3,000 integrated parking bays.
Chan said the mall forms part of the larger 2.3 million square foot Sunway Square development, which will also house a 1,200-seat performing arts centre, the region’s largest bookstore with millions of titles, and two premium corporate office towers.
“The integrated township attracts 42 million visitors every year. The mall will certainly gain from good cross traffic from the two corporate towers with a working population of 10,000 office workers. In addition, the 600,000 square feet campus with the Sunway School of Art and the School of Business with a capacity of 8,000 students is expected to bring a greater vibrancy too. Today, within the 2km radius of Sunway Square, there are already more than 60,000 tertiary students,“ he said.
Sunway Square is the latest development in Sunway City Kuala Lumpur comprising twin commercial towers, a world-class 1,200-seater performing arts centre and a 24-hour library with several million books.
For the longer term, Sunway Malls is expected to grow its portfolio of malls through both upcoming developments and Sunway REIT acquisitions.
