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June 1, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Footfall at leading Moscow malls continues to underperform as income rises
Ben Aris in Berlin
The latest Watcom shopping index showed
that foot traffic at Moscow’s leading shopping malls continues to underperform, despite the strong recovery in both real and real disposable incomes in April.
The Watcom index, which measures footfall in the leading shopping malls in Moscow in real time using face recognition technology and the security cameras in the top malls in the capital, has been falling steadily for several years since its inception in 2014.
While the Watcom index focuses on Moscow, similar trends are seen in the large regional cities, the company reports. A noticeable drop is observed in the millionki, Russian cities with
over one million inhabitants. Yekaterinburg’s shopping index decreased by 8.7% y/y as shoppers left the centre to enjoy the spring weather, the company believes. In Kazan, the opposite happened, with the local shopping index up 7.4% in April y/y, driven by pilgrims visiting the predominantly Muslim enclave of Tatarstan as well as the general prosperity in the region.
Watcom Group president Roman Skorokhodov said: “Lots of different factors have an impact on footfall — from location to the weather. Tenants synergy and effective management are important here as the managing company should solve problems quickly so that the visitors come back here again and again.”