SM Prime bets on China growth with 7th mall
SM PRIME Holdings, Inc. has opened its seventh mall in China, banking on the continued growth in consumer spending in the world’s second-largest economy.
The property business of the country’s richest man Henry Sy, Sr. has soft- opened its 565,000 square meters ( sqm.) facility in China on Dec. 17, SM Prime President Jeffrey C. Lim said in a statement on Monday.
“The opening of SM City Tianjin reflects our strong confidence on China’s economy. This gives SM Prime a wider perspective on China’s shopping culture, allowing us to capture bigger opportunities as an international integrated property developer,” Mr. Lim was quoted as saying in a statement.
SM Prime is pursuing expansion plans in China as its consumer spending growth remains to be strong. SM said China’s consumption grew to $1.4 trillion in 2010 from around $650 billion in 2000, creating the largest consumer market in the world and its consumption “has been growing faster than any other country’s in absolute terms.”
SM said its mall in Tianjin is located in the emerging Binhai New Area — home to over 2,000 enterprises from 130 countries — the largest free trade zone in Northern China. It is also a central business district where international corporations in logistics and financial services have been established.
SM City Tianjin opened with anchor tenants such as Dadi IFree Cinema, Bravo Yonghui Supermarket, Jiawen, FTZ Korea World, Decathlon, Acasia Food Court and Watsons. It also features a kidfriendly Exploreum, Wellness tenants, a skating rink, as well as 8,110 parking slots for the shoppers.
SM said more than 60% of SM City Tianjin’s mall space has already been leased out.
SM City Tianjin — designed by ARQ, a world- renowned design agency, with three structures that are positioned that looks like a large blossoming flower from above — is adjacent to the airport and is accessible through the cities of Beijing and Qinhuangdao via buses, expressways and highspeed railways.
Apart from SM City Tianjin, the Sy-led developer also has six other malls in China — SM City Xiamen, SM City Jinjiang, SM City Chengdu, SM City Suzhou, SM City Chongqing and SM City Zibo, all with a combined gross floor area (GFA) of 1.5 million sqm.
In the Philippines, SM Prime has 60 malls with the recent opening of SM City East Ortigas in Pasig City last Dec. 2 with a GFA of more than 80,000 sqm.; SM Cherry Congressional in Quezon City last Nov. 25 with more than 13,000 sqm. in GFA; SM City San Jose Del Monte in Bulacan last April with 101,000 sqm. in GFA; and SM City Trece Martires in Cavite last May 2016 with 84,000 sqm. in GFA.
This brings SM Prime’s combined GFA to 9.1 million sqm. both in the Philippines and in China, SM Prime said.
In the first nine months, a sustained growth in rental operations and real estate sales allowed SM Prime to generate revenues amounting to P57.8 billion or 11% over last year’s P52.2 billion. Its net income accordingly rose 13% to P17.5 billion from P15.5 billion.
Shares in SM Prime closed P1.60 or 5.56% lower at P27.20 apiece on the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday. —