Specialist retail real-estate investment trust Vukile reported fairly brisk sales during the festive period in December compared with November, in its SA portfolio, suggesting that sales associated with Black Friday deals had lost momentum.
Trading densities rose 8% in December year on year, led primarily by township centres (+13%), followed by rural shopping centres (+7.2%) and then urban shopping centres (+4.5%).
Trading density is the sales turnover achieved per rentable square metre in a store or shopping centre. It usually indicates the profitability of a store or mall.
Fashion trade led the way, with women’s wear surging 14.5% in December and marking an overall 10.4% increase for the final two months of 2023.
In recent years, November sales boosted by Black Friday’s marked-down deals in SA have tended to outperform December sales.
Trading density for the combined November and December rose 4.3% compared to the same period a year earlier. The township portfolio did the heavy lifting, followed by the rural assets and then urban properties.
“These numbers are more impressive when considered against the backdrop of figures reported by Statistics SA indicating a decline in retail sales for November,” Vukile said in a trading update on Monday.
The company also owns portfolio of shopping centres in Spain, which led Europe with a 5.3% growth in footfall in the last quarter of 2023, according to Vukile, which cited Shopper Track report.
The Spanish assets are held in the Madrid-listed subsidiary Castellana, in which Vukile has a 99.5% interest,
Castellana closed the 2023 calendar year with a new record footfall of more than 44.8-million visits, up 6.4% compared with 2022.
Black Friday sales rose 7% in November and 6% in December, Vukile said.
All retail categories exceeded 2022 performance. The three categories achieving the highest increases in sales were media and technology (19.5%), health and beauty (14.2%) and food and beverage (12.3%).
Its shares were up nearly 1% to R15.21 in early trade on the JSE, having doubled over the last three years, excluding the dividends.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.