Dubai Duty Free Q1 sales increase 14%

Sales at Dubai Duty Free increased 14 percent during the first quarter of the year to AED1.42bn (US$390m), setting it on track to achieve sales of AED6bn by year end. The world’s largest airport retailer said liquor, perfume and gold remained the top three most sold items with perfume sales up 22 percent to AED213m. “We have had a very good start to the year and are very much on track for our sales forecast of AED6bn,” Colm McLoughlin, executive vice chairman of Dubai Duty Free said in a statement. “Terminal 3 continues to be the biggest in terms of accumulative sales and accounts for almost 58 percent of our total turnover, however, the average spend of passengers in Terminal 1, which accounts for 35 percent of sales, is higher,” he added. Sales in Terminal 1 increased 15 percent year to date compared to 21 percent in Terminal 2 and 12 percent in Terminal 3, said the retailer. Confectionary sales rose 20 percent to AED112m while electronics increased 19 percent and cosmetics 23 percent. Dubai Duty Free, which operates 18,000 sqm of retail space at Dubai International Airport, is reported to be in the process of raising a US$1.1bn loan backed by the airport retailer’s future cash earnings and hired lenders. Parent company, Investment Corp of Dubai, the emirate’s main state-owned holding company, also mandated HSBC Holdings, Dubai Islamic Bank and Emirates NBD to help with the fundraising, Bloomberg said last month, citing people familiar with the deal. The retailer, which reported a 15.6 percent rise in 2011 revenue to US$1.46bn, is also part-financing the building of a fourth concourse at the airport in AED28bn deal. It will require around new 3,000 employees to staff its retail operations there in 2015.