Yeah, and then there will be at least another 3 mega malls coming on stream in a year or two, namely - the Country Garden Shopping Mall in Danga Bay, The Princess Cove Shopping Centre near the CIQ and the Paradigm Mall, revived from the abandoned Remayan City on Skudai Road.
By then, without a solid consumer mass to support, you'll see retail cannibalism all over.
Aeon Q1 profit falls 42%
Friday, 20 May 2016
KUALA LUMPUR: Aeon Co (M) Bhd posted a 42% drop in net profit to RM28.7mil in the first quarter ended March 31, as the country’s biggest listed retailer was hit by higher operating cost and lower margins amid weaker consumer sentiment.
The sharp drop in profit was also due to initial costs associated with newly opened stores, the company said in its filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday.
The company, however, will press on with its expansion plans with a RM650mil capital expenditure budgeted for this year.
“It will go towards the opening of our new stores and refurbishments of present ones such as those in Mid Valley,” its executive director Poh Ying Loo said after the company’s annual general meeting yesterday.
“We have already spent more than RM250mil after the opening of two new stores.
“We will open another two stores next year in Johor Baru and Kuching; the capex will also be used for stores that will be opened the next year,” he said.
The company which is the biggest public listed retailer by market capitalisation in Malaysia said it will use both internal and external funds for this allocation.
It has so far opened two stores in Shah Alam and Kota Bahru, Poh said.
“Our Tebrau City’s shopping mall renovation will complete by October 2016. While there are major renovations at Mid Valley and a refurbishment at Taman Maluri including Queensbay,” its managing director Nur Qamarina said.
It will also add another Index Living Mall store at Tebrau City to four stores.
The Index Living Mall is a furniture retail concept that was built through a joint venture and is similar to the Ikea concept.
“We think that’s it for the moment on (expansion) of the Index Living Mall. Until then, we will need to enhance this business model first,” Nur said.
Nur said Aeon had recently also joined the e-commerce wave through its website
www.shoppu.com.my.
“We launched it in November last year. We would like it to stabilise for it to run smoothly especially in merchandising. We are now looking at how to improve it to do an in-store online shopping (experience). We are preparing for this platform moving foward,” she said.
She added that sales from the website has been growing at a fast pace since its launch but noted that there was much room to strenghten the platform in the future.
Its chairman Datuk Abdullah Mohd Yusof said that competition continues to be keen in the retail sector and this had in part caused its profits to fall in FY15.
“Net profits fell by about RM80mil due to the impact of the goods and services tax, the decrease in the value of the ringgit and the most significant factor is the general increase in the cost of living and the cost of doing business.
“This has impacted us quite a lot,” Abdullah said.
http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2016/05/20/aeon-q1-profit-falls-42/