November 12, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Sy family remains bullish on its China operations, with SM’s newly opened mall in Xiamen enjoying strong tenant take-up.
SM Supermalls has recently expanded its presence in China with the opening of SM City Xiamen Haicang, its ninth shopping center in China and its second mall in Xiamen.
“We are still very gung-ho on our development in China as seen in our latest opening of SM Haicang, which is in Xiamen,” SM Supermalls president Steven Tan said.
“It is a medium-sized mall, but the nice thing about this mall is the take-up of our tenants is very strong. We opened at 90 percent operational occupancy. We’ve never had that in the past for China. This is the first time that we really hit that 90 percent operational occupancy for a new mall in Haicang. We’re confident with what’s going on and how it will become in the next few years,” he said.
SM opened its first mall in China in 2001 and currently operates malls in Xiamen, Jinjiang, Chengdu, Zibo, Chongqing, Tianjin, Suzhou and Yangzhou.
Tan said that SM will further grow its retail presence in China with the opening of a new mall in Fuzhou by 2027.
“We will also be able to open next year, by the first or second quarter, the last phase of our mall redevelopment in SM City Xiamen, which is the phase four of the project, which is going to be quite exciting and quite youthful,” he said.
SM Prime Holdings president Jeffrey Lim, for his part, sees the company’s China operations improving in the coming years.
However, he said the group’s expansion plans and development for China would basically be confined to Fujian province including Xiamen.
“China operations have improved, especially with the latest opening that we have, our SM Haicang. In terms of expansion programs, I think we will limit that to the existing land bank that we have. But overall, we should be improving the China operations,” Lim said.
SM Supermalls, which is celebrating 40 years of retail leadership, has a total of 89 malls in the Philippines.
Over P150 billion will be invested by SM in 16 major redevelopments and 12 new lifestyle malls to ensure that its entire portfolio evolves into greener, smarter and more people-centered destinations by 2030.
In the Philippines, part of its expansion initiative is the delivery of one flagship mall annually over the next five years.
Planned projects include SM Sta. Rosa (Yulo) in Nuvali eyed by 2026, Harrison Plaza in Manila by 2027, SM Malolos in Bulacan by 2028, Cavite by 2029 and Pasay by 2030.
