Emaar Malls fourth-quarter net profit grows 2% as it expands outlets and retail offerings

Occupancy across its assets was maintained at 93% last year

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES -Chinese decorations all over Dubai Mall to celebrate the coming Chinese new year at the Dubai Mall.  Leslie Pableo for The National
Powered by automated translation

Emaar Malls, a unit of Dubai’s biggest listed developer Emaar Properties, posted a 2 per cent increase in fourth-quarter net income as it continued to expand its malls and retail offerings.

Net profit in the three months ending December 31 reached Dh591 million, the company said on Wednesday.

Revenue during the period grew 8 per cent year-on-year to Dh1.21 billion.

“The malls and retail sector continues to be highly competitive and the successful performance of Emaar Malls in 2018 gained from the strong economic fundamentals of Dubai and the successful opening of the Fashion Avenue extension,” said Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Properties.

In July, Emaar Properties said it planned to build the “world’s first technology-embedded” shopping mall at a Dh10bn ($2.7bn) retail complex planned for Dubai Creek Harbour. The Dubai Square mall will span about 633,450 square metres – bigger than Emaar’s flagship The Dubai Mall.

Emaar Malls has been expanding its properties in a bid to attract more visitors to its developments, which include The Dubai Mall, Dubai Marina Mall and Souk Al Bahar. It has a total gross leasable area of 622,450 sq metres  and maintained 93 per cent occupancy across its assets last year.

The malls and retail centres together welcomed 136 million visitors in 2018, an increase of 5 per cent from 2017, Emaar Malls said. The Dubai Mall received 83 million visitors in 2018, a 4 per cent increase from a year earlier. The company added more than 150 new retail outlets to The Dubai Mall as part of the Fashion Avenue expansion, beefing up the number of retailers to more than 1,350 and over 170 F&B outlets.

Online fashion retailer Namshi, in which Emaar Malls has a majority stake, recorded sales of Dh849m in 2018, an increase of 16 per cent from a year earlier.