MANILA, Philippines — SM Prime Holdings Inc., the Sy family’s integrated property developer and the country’s largest mall operator, will further cement its dominance in the Philippine retail landscape by giving Filipino shoppers and tenants nearly 10 million square meters of mall space nationwide by next year.
SM Prime is adding more than 500,000 square meters of gross floor area (GFA) in its mall portfolio next year through four new malls it is slated to open.
SM City Sta. Rosa will be the biggest for next year, bringing in 190,000 square meters of GFA, followed by SM City Laoag and SM City La Union with 113,000 and 112,000 square meters, respectively.
SM City Zamboanga, on its end, will provide 91,000 square meters of GFA.
This year, SM Prime opened SM City Caloocan in May and SM City J Mall in Cebu in October, adding almost 200,000 square meters of GFA in the company’s mall portfolio.
SM Prime’s 87 malls in the Philippines have a total GFA of 9.4 million square meters, the largest in the country.
In terms of GFA, SM’s Metro Manila malls account for 42 percent; Luzon excluding NCR, 38 percent; Visayas, 12 percent and Mindanao, eight percent.
Excluding the recently opened SM City J Mall, SM malls in the country have a total of 23,307 tenants, 393 cinema screens, 90,178 car park slots and an average daily pedestrian count of 3.7 million.
Moving forward, SM Prime’s mall expansion is geared toward the provinces.
The company’s focus is to cover most of Northern Luzon, Visayas and the progressive cities in Mindanao.
SM Prime president Jeffrey Lim earlier said that the company is targeting to open five new malls next year, although the location of the fifth mall is still not identified.
SM Prime is targeting a portfolio of 100 malls in the country by end-2027.
Aside from its mall empire in the Philippines, SM Prime also operates eight malls in China with a total GFA of 1.7 million square meters.
SM Supermalls is also undertaking a redevelopment with the aim of transforming its malls into sustainable, innovative and community-centric spaces.
Under its reinvention plan, SM Supermalls intends to create more spaces for leisure and interaction in its malls, while celebrating local communities at the same time.