Today, all of the mainboard-listed department store operator’s 37 outlets are in Malaysia. In terms of total gross floor area, they take up 409,000 sq m, roughly the size of 76 football fields. That’s down from 809,000 sq m in 2017.
There’s no doubt e-commerce has dealt a blow to brick-and-mortar retail worldwide. With online shopping a fixture of modern living, many department store chains have had to reduce their retail footprint. Quite a few have even packed up entirely in some places.
In business for nearly four decades now, Parkson Retail Asia (SGX:O9E
) has seen its portfolio of department stores shrink by about half from its peak in 2017, when it had 70 outlets across Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar.
