SM Prime confirms opening of two new malls in Xiamen

SM Prime [SMPH 26.10, down 1.7%; 129% avgVol] [link] clarified a report on its mall expansion effort in Xiamen, China. SMPH confirmed that it is opening two new malls in Xiamen, but clarified that it is “one new mall plus one expansion project.” SM Supermalls President Steven Tan was quoted as saying, “If you total [all of SM’s malls in Xiamen], it might actually be even bigger than Mall of Asia and Megamall.”

MB bottom-line: Not much to say about this one, except that it’s interesting to see a PH-based mall developer seeing some success in the Chinese market. For two reasons. First, because the Chinese market is absolutely gargantuan and is already filled with local, regional, and national developers who (I would think) would do a better job than SMPH at building malls in China, and last, because SMPH needs to find new markets (like China) for its massive malls that have already saturated many areas of the Philippines. I’ve always considered SMPH’s efforts in China to be more wishful thinking, but maybe they’re starting to turn the corner into something that can start to make a real difference.  

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