Emaar Malls third quarter net profit up 11%, beats estimates

The company's results buoyed by acquisiton of online retailer Namshi

The retail sector, which accounts for 26.6 per cent of total GDP, grew 0.9 per cent. Anna Nielsen / The National

Emaar Malls, the retail business majority-owned by Emaar Properties that operate Dubai Mall, posted an 11 per cent increase in third quarter net profit, beating an analyst's forecast, as the company benefited from the acquisition of online retailer Namshi.

Net profit in the three months ending September 30 reached Dh485 million compared with Dh435 a year earlier, the company said in a statement to the Dubai Financial Market.

The results beat a Dh441m forecast by an analyst polled by Bloomberg. Third quarter net revenue rose 13 per cent to Dh876m compared with Dh774m.

Emaar Malls completed in August its acquisition of a 51 per cent stake in fashion retailer Namshi for $151m, wrapping up its hunt to land a significant e-commerce asset after it tried to buy Souq.com earlier this year, whch was aquired by ecommerce giant Amazon. Namshi’s sales rose 39 per cent to Dh196m in the third quarter from a year-earlier period, the company said.

“In addition to introducing advanced technologies that add value to customers and retailers, Emaar Malls is investing in digital platforms to offer more and varied choices for people across multiple channels,” said Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Malls and Emaar Properties.

The Dubai Mall, Dubai Marina Mall, Souk Al Bahar, Gold & Diamond Park and community shopping centres welcomed more than 95 million visitors in the first nine months of the year, an increase of 5 per cent over the same period in 2016.

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Dubai Mall, the company’s flagship property, received a record 58 million visitors in the first nine months of this year.

Occupancy across Emaar Mall’s properties, which have a gross leasable area of 6 million square feet, averaged 95 per cent during the first nine months of this year.

Emaar Properties, the UAE’s largest listed developer, opened last week the subscription of its initial public offering of a 20 per cent stake in its real estate development business, Emaar Development.