OREANDA-NEWS After a sharp drop in attendance caused by the departure of foreign brands, the traffic of large shopping centers across Russia began to recover. In April — mid-May, it grew by 7% year-on-year. The market is associated with the emerging revival with the emergence of new tenants and the reformatting of familiar stores. But the consultants do not expect a full recovery of the segment: a significant gap with the pre-pandemic 2019 will remain for a long time.

The Mall Index indicator (reflects the number of visitors per 1 thousand square meters of retail space) in Russia in April — mid-May increased by an average of 3% year-on-year, according to Focus Technologies data. The traffic of large trade centers with an area of more than 40 thousand square meters increased most significantly — by 7%. In small and medium—sized objects (from 5 thousand to 40 thousand square meters), the increase was insignificant — only 1%.

Mikhail Vasiliev, Head of Research and Consulting at Focus Technologies, explains that this trend is evident in all major cities of the country. He attributes this to the gradual opening of new stores by Russian and Turkish retailers in place of points of sale of Western brands that have left the country. Large trading centers suffered the most from their departure, since in some such facilities foreign networks occupied up to 50% of the leasable area, the senior director of CORE notes.XP Marina Malakhatko. The expert explains that, on the one hand, small trading centers are more stable in times of crisis, on the other hand, such objects, unlike large trading centers, have limited traffic growth.

Ms. Malakhatko confirms that now new stores are being opened mainly by Russian and Turkish chains. "We do not see the release of Iranian, Indian, Korean and other brands, as stated a year ago," she says.