The engineering and construction company KDM, which provides construction, management and rental services for more than fifty shopping centres, has published a map of shopping centres in Turkey. According to the results of the company's research, in 2006-2015, 278 shopping centres were opened in the country, in 2016-2020 - 80 shopping centres. Now there are 434 shopping centres in Turkey, the total investment in Turkish city malls is 58 billion liras, the number of jobs provided by shopping centres is 520,000.
The total area of leased commercial real estate in the shopping centres is now 13 million square meters. These figures bring Turkey closer to the indicators of Europe, however, in terms of profitability, Turkish city malls are almost 4 times behind Europe. The main sources of income for Turkish shopping centres have been and remain tourists, who make over 30 percent of sales. One foreign tourist makes purchases as ten Turkish residents, i.e. tourist traffic accounts for 10-15 percent of retailers' turnover. If there is no second wave of the pandemic, then by the end of 2020 other 11 shopping centres will open in Turkey, and by the end of 2021 - 26 shopping centres.
Murat Izci, founder of KDM: “The pandemic has changed not only our lifestyle and shopping habits, it has changed our attitude to time and the very concept of time. The shopping centres that are planned to open will have to adapt to the conditions of the pandemic, and the existing shopping centres will have to keep their tenants. Today retailers cannot afford opening new points in shopping centres and are quite pessimistic. To support retailors, it is important to take additional measures like rent holidays, rent based on income, etc."
According to research by KDM:
- 65 out of 81 provinces in Turkey have shopping centres, 118 shopping centres are located in Istanbul, 43 - in Ankara;
- the leader in terms of the number of rented space in shopping centres is Istanbul (4,678,000 square meters), in second place - Ankara (1,717,000 square meters), in third - Izmir (768,000 square meters);
- there are shopping centres in 34 out of 39 districts of Istanbul, in 6 out of 25 districts in Ankara and in 10 out of 30 districts in Izmir.
If we compare Turkey and Europe, then (according to last year's data), there are 155 square metres of shopping centre area per 1000 residents in Turkey, and 206 square metres per 1000 residents in other European countries. However, if we compare the national income per capita, in Turkey it remains at the level of 9,346 dollars, while in Europe it is almost 4 times higher (35,646 dollars).