Farewell to Century Jinyuan Wangfujing and Speed up the Layout of Duty-free Business
Farewell to "Top Flow" Shopping Mall
After more than 20 years of operation, () I finally chose to bid farewell to this "top flow" shopping mall in Beijing.
On February 14th, Wangfujing announced that the Lease Contract between Beijing Xinyansha Holdings (Group) Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary, and Beijing Century Jinyuan Shopping Center Management Co., Ltd. for the operating site of Beijing Jinyuan Xinyansha MALL will expire on March 31st, 2025.
After the expiration of the contract, that is, from April 1st, Beijing Jinyuan New Yansha MALL, Beijing Yansha Friendship Mall Jinyuan Store and Beijing Guiyou Building Jinyuan Store will stop operating.
At the same time, Beijing Century Jinyuan Shopping Center also announced that it will take over the new Yansha rental area from April 1. The shopping center will continue to operate normally at that time. At present, Century Jinyuan Shopping Center has completed the handover and signing with the cooperative brands in the venue.
Wangfujing has cooperated with Century Golden Resources for so long and chose to leave at this time. What kind of business considerations are hidden behind this?
Farewell to Century Jinyuan
Century Jinyuan Shopping Center, located at No.1 Yuanda Road, Haidian District, has been in operation for 20 years since its opening in 2004.
With a construction area of 680,000 ㎡, the project became the largest single commercial project in Asia in that year, filling the gap that there was no comprehensive shopping center in Jingxi at that time.
Century Jinyuan Shopping Center includes several main stores, including Jinyuan New Yansha Mall, Yansha Friendship Mall and Guiyou Building, as well as the home of home stores and the large-scale Lotus Supermarket.
Among them, the leased area of Jinyuan New Yansha MALL is 182,000 ㎡, including 42,000 ㎡ for Jinyuan Store of Yansha Friendship Mall and 13,000 ㎡ for Jinyuan Store of Guiyou Building. The whole project is operated and managed by Beijing Xinyansha Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wangfujing.
Relevant data show that Jinyuan New Yansha Mall achieved sales of 1.36 billion yuan in 2007, an increase of 223% compared with 2005, and the occupancy rate of shops reached 95%, making it profitable for the first time. And set a record of sales of 2.2 billion yuan, rent collection rate and rental rate of "double hundred" in 2023.
Not only that, Beijing Xinyansha Holdings is also one of the profitable subsidiaries of Wangfujing. The annual report shows that in 2023 and the first half of 2024, the company achieved net profit of 368 million yuan and 196 million yuan respectively.
Even so, Wangfujing abandoned Jinyuan New Yansha MALL and chose not to participate in the subsequent operation, striving to speed up the layout of new commercial tracks.
"The company is in the critical period of format iteration and the incubation period of new format development. The company will accelerate the iteration of format and store structure, optimize the development model and factor allocation, continuously improve the operation quality, deeply tap the market potential, and continuously renew its business content." Wangfujing said.
Of course, after the withdrawal of Wangfujing, the leased area of New Yansha will be fully taken over by Century Jinyuan.
It is reported that Century Jinyuan Shopping Center will start to carry out zoning transformation, and Section A of the west area of the project is the first phase transformation area, during which other areas will continue to operate. The project plans to build five cultural theme spaces: the city light, the Oriental Beauty School District, the city market, the impromptu time zone and the main road.
In this regard, industry analysts believe that the current Century Jinyuan Shopping Center has been slightly old, facing the pressure of customer loss. Through large-scale upgrading, we can introduce more new brands and formats in line with the current consumption trend to attract young people, thus enhancing our competitiveness in regional commerce.
Speed up the layout of duty-free business
While giving up Jinyuan New Yansha MALL, Wangfujing is also accelerating the layout of tax-free business.
On February 14th, the joint venture company jointly established by Wangfujing and () completed the establishment registration procedures. The company is used to operate the duty-free shops in Wuhan located in the shopping center of Wuhan International Plaza.
In fact, after obtaining the qualification of duty-free goods in June 2020, Wangfujing began to actively promote the landing of duty-free formats. At present, a number of duty-free projects have been laid out nationwide, including duty-free shops in outlying islands, port duty-free shops and city duty-free shops.
Among them, Wangfujing International Duty Free Port, the company’s first tax-free project for outlying islands, opened in January 2023; On January 24th, 2025, Wangfujing Duty Free Shop in Harbin Airport, the first port duty-free project operated by Wangfujing, was opened to the public.
The accelerated expansion of duty-free business is rapidly becoming a new growth point of Wangfujing’s performance. The financial report shows that in the first half of 2024, Wangfujing achieved a total revenue of 6.035 billion yuan. Among them, the tax-free business income was 172 million yuan, and the income increased by 121.17% compared with the same period.
Compared with the negative growth or slight growth of department stores, shopping centers, outlets and specialty store, Wangfujing’s duty-free business has full potential.
However, Wangfujing also admitted that the tax-free format of enterprises is still in its infancy, and due to factors such as business area, the income ratio is only 2.64%.
In the future, it is not known how much development space the duty-free business can bring to Wangfujing.