MALL ECONOMY

The dizzying growth of India’s malls, in one chart

By Suneera Tandon • February 27, 2018

REUTERS/RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI
A day in the life of a mall.

Shopping malls were the avour of India’s urban

development in 2000s. India added a dizzying number of
such properties in the last two decades, even though they
also shuttered down quite frequently.

Data from real estate consultancy JJL India suggests that,

overall, the number of malls in India increased from nine in
2002 to 308 in 2017. Mindless investment, coupled with a
global slump, spoilt the party for a few years during this
period.

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 Indian investors took to malls a decade after the country’s
economic liberalisation, hoping to capture rising
consumerism here. “Building malls in the early 2000s was
seen as a glamorous business without realising what it takes
to run them,” said Ashutosh Limaye, who heads research for
JLL India.

The 2008 global nancial crisis forced developers to hit

pause. As investor sentiment dipped, many plans were
deferred or even dropped between 2008-2010. Since 2011,
however, developers have turned more conservative. This has
left a handful of serious investors and developers, who are
now showing a renewed interest in this retail format.

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