Japanese retailer Aeon recently opened its largest Chinese shopping mall in Suzhou, marking the company's entry into the Shanghai-centered East China region.
Aeon's new store is located in Suzhou Wuzhong Economic Development Zone, which is close to Shanghai. This new store has an area of about 75,000 square meters and it is reportedly the company's largest outlet in China. The shopping mall will introduce 190 specialty stores to local consumers in addition to a supermarket and movie theater. Its target customer flow is ten million annually.
Prior to this, Aeon Group said that they plan to invest about JPY400 billion to develop and expand their stores in Asia over the next three years. This represents a doubled investment compared with the previous three years.
Aeon will further expand its investment range in Southeast Asia in 2014, aiming to attract the one billion middle-income people in this region. Following the opening of its first store in Vietnam in January 2014, Aeon will open a new store in Cambodia in June and in Indonesia at the end of the year. At the same time, the company is considering investment plans in Myanmar and Laos.
So is it a store or is it a mall? Or did Aeon open the store and the mall? The article does not make this clear.
It is a mall, one of the biggest in China. I live right next to it, so I know.
Its not exactly big at only 75000m/2 .. .the new Capital Malls centre in the Suzhou Centre will be over 300,000m/2 now that is a big mall.. but Aeon is different from most that it is a pure stand alone shopping mall and not a part of a traditional mixed use development.