PETALING JAYA: Sunway Malls’ sales performance in 2023 was in line with expectations and registered 5% year-on-year (y-o-y) increase on the back of Sunway Carnival’s double-digit growth, resilient out-of-home dining and strong first-quarter (Q1) festive spending across its properties.
With this, the mall group surpassed its record-breaking sales performance in 2022, which was the highest in its 26 years of business then.
In 2023, Sunway Malls saw its sale performance come in above expectations in Q1 with growth at 19% y-o-y, before moderating for the remaining quarters of the year. For Q2, the group matched its previous year’s same-period performance, while Q3 came in at 2% higher and Q4 saw 1% growth.
Sunway Malls & Theme Parks CEO HC Chan said, “Certainly, Sunway Malls’ strong Q1 performance provided a huge buffer to ease off the moderation effect of the remaining quarters. Throughout 2023, businesses and consumers faced escalating costs due to inflation and a weaker ringgit arising from the US Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate increases.
“Still Sunway Malls managed to navigate the challenging business landscape and the high base of 2022 to achieve a commendable 5% growth.”
The group’s growth is ahead of the forecast 2023 national gross domestic product expansion of 4%.
Sunway Malls’ 5% sales growth was driven by high growth from travel, health & personal care and entertainment retail sub-sectors and supported by resilient performances of the food & beverage and fashion retail sub-sectors.
Sunway Malls is undertaking a RM550 million Asset Enhancement Initiative (AEI) covering 800,000 sq ft of retail space in Sunway Pyramid and Sunway Carnival, with respective investments of RM200 million and RM350 million, respectively.
The AEIs are strategic thrusts to convert low-yield to high-yield for Sunway Malls’ next growth phase. The quality retail space will enable Sunway Malls to cater to a variety of new and fresh offerings including more Muslim-friendly offerings,” Chan said.
In addition, Sunway is building two malls – Sunway Square with retail space of 300,000 sq ft in Sunway City Kuala Lumpur with expected completion at end-2024 and Sunway Ipoh Mall with retail space of 1 million sq ft in Sunway City Ipoh which is expected to be completed by 2026.
