06/02/2024 – 17:39
Sales at shopping malls in Brazil were records last year, but performance was below what was initially expected due to the weight of high interest rates and inflation, according to a survey released this Tuesday, 6th, by the Brazilian Association of Shopping Centers (Associação Brasileira de Shopping Centers (Associação Brasileira de Shopping Centers) Hug).
The combined sales of all shopping mall tenants in 2023 reached the highest value in history, R$194.7 billion. The amount represents an increase of 1.5% compared to 2022, when it was R$191.8 billion.
The sector's revenue in 2023 also exceeded the performance of 2019 by 1%, which was the last year before the arrival of the pandemic and reached R$192.8 billion. The 2023 result indicates that the sector was able to recover from the health crisis, in general.
On the other hand, the 1.5% increase in sales in 2023 was well below the projection that Abrasce made at the beginning of that year, which was an expansion of 14.6%.
“Considering the situation we are facing, I am satisfied with the performance in 2023”, said the president of Abrasce, Glauco Humai, in an interview. “We fell short of potential, but it was still satisfactory. The sector has shown resilience.”
According to Humai, the sector felt the weight of high interest rates, since the beginning of the downward cycle took longer than expected by economists. Furthermore, in the first months of last year there was still inflationary pressure. Together, these two factors curbed the purchasing power of the population, which was already heavily in debt.
“The second and third quarter of 2023 were very bad for the sector as a whole. The commemorative dates had sales below expectations. It was only at the end of last year that there was a sign of political and economic accommodation and improvement in general data,” said Humai. “The positive balance of 2023 was to prepare the ground for a better performance in 2024”, he amended.
Despite the turbulence, five shopping centers were opened in 2023, two in the Southeast, one in the South, one in the Central-West and one in the Northeast. As a result, the total number of projects in operation increased from 634 to 639 shopping malls.
In terms of gross leasable area (GLA), this expansion represented an increase of 1.9% over the year 2022, with a total of 17.8 million square meters, compared to the 17.5 million indicated in 2022, according to with a survey by Abrasce.
The number of stores also grew and reached 121 thousand, an increase of 4.5% compared to 2022 (gain of 115 thousand stores). As a result, the occupancy rate in shopping malls throughout 2023 reached 94.6%, compared to 94.4% in 2022 and very close to the 2019 mark of 95.3% (the highest so far).
For the first time, Abrasce's research calculated the total number of kiosks, which take advantage of reduced spaces to sell products, services and food. In total, there are 15,612 units in operation.
The flow of customers was also positive, in Abrasce's view, with an average number of 462 million visits per month, an increase of 4.3% compared to 2022, when the monthly average was 443 million.
In total, the sector accumulated 1.062 million direct jobs, an increase of 1.8% compared to the previous year.
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