Dubai Duty Free sales hit record amid travel demand

Sales at Dubai Duty Free increased by about a quarter to hit a record of nearly Dh7.9 billion ($2.16 billion) in 2023, reaching its target for the year, the retailer said.

The performance was driven by continued growth in passenger traffic and booming activity in December.

Sales increased 24.4 per cent annually in 2023 and were up 6.4 per cent from 2019, the last year before the Covid-19 pandemic stalled travel worldwide, Dubai Duty Free said.

Sales in December – when the company marked its 40th anniversary – rose about 8.4 per cent year-onyear to a monthly record of Dh807.6 million, aided by a special sale on December 20 that generated Dh54.1 million in just 24 hours.

“It has been a fantastic year,” Colm McLoughlin, executive vice chairman and chief executive of Dubai Duty Free, said.

Dubai Duty Free reported more than 20 million sales transactions throughout 2023, which is an average of almost 55,000 transactions daily, with about 55.2 million units of merchandise sold.

The increase in sales was the result of higher passenger traffic through Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest hub by international traffic, as aviation continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic.

The airport recorded 22.9 million passengers in the third quarter of 2023 – the highest quarterly traffic since 2019 – Dubai Airports said in November. That took the total traffic for the first nine months of the year to 64.5 million passengers, up 39.3 per cent compared with the same period in 2022.

Dubai Airports, which manages Dubai International Airport and Al Maktoum International Airport, is expecting “record-breaking” numbers in the fourth quarter and 2024, it said.

Dubai International Airport’s annual passenger traffic is predicted to reach 93.8 million in 2025, surpassing its busiest year in 2018 when it recorded 89.1 million travellers, and “hopefully we’ll get the magic 100 million number not long after”, Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, told The National at the Dubai Airshow in November.

Dubai Duty Free said it will enhance its retail operation, which includes major refurbishment plans in Concourse B, which will be completed early this year”.

Perfumes remained Dubai Duty Free’s best-selling category in 2023, with sales of about Dh1.37 billion contributing 17 per cent to the overall volume.

Liquor (Dh1.13 billion), gold (Dh773.5 million), cigarettes and tobacco (Dh745.7 million) and electronics (Dh628 million) rounded out the top five categories.