Dubai Duty Free sees $3.3bn in retail sales by 2020

Dubai Duty Free expects annual sales to more than double in the next decade, reaching up to AED12bn ($3.3bn) by the end of 2020, its CEO said Wednesday. Sales of perfumes, cosmetics, liquor products and gold continue to surge at the Gulf’s top transit hub, Colm McLoughlin said. The airport retailer saw sales of AED4.66bn in 2010. “We expect to finish this year with sales of AED5.3bn, and have budgeted for AED6bn in 2012,” he told Arabian Business. “By 2020, we expect about AED11bn to AED12bn.” DDF saw a 16.6 percent rise in sales in the first half, despite a decline in regional tourism figures in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings, posting revenues of AED2.54bn. The top three selling categories continued to be perfumes, liquor and gold with perfume sales increasing by 20 percent to reach AED361m. Average passenger spend is $46, DDF data shows, with half of all travellers making a purchase. McLoughlin said he planned to expand the retailer’s cosmetics offering to cater for rising demand among passengers. “Our single biggest category at the moment is perfume, and yes, it is bigger than gold,” he said. “In 2012, concourse 3 will open, and we are going to put in an additional 8,000 sq m of retail space. So we are talking there about duplicating our perfume and cosmetics [section].” DDF said in August it would part-finance the building of a fourth concourse at Dubai International Airport, in its first large-scale infrastructure investment. The state-owned retailer said the investment would be funded by cashflow, but did not specify the value of the outlay. Dubai in July said it would spend $7.8bn on expanding its airports as it seeks to turn Dubai International into the world’s busiest airfield. The airport plans to complete Concourse 3, meant for the use of Emirates’ Airbus A380 planes, by 2012 and to build Concourse 4 by 2015.