Gautengers are South Africa’s mall champions

Gauteng is South Africa’s economic hub – and also home to a disproportionately high number of shopping centres.

While Gauteng is home to 27% of South Africa’s population, our 1 800 telemetry monitored malls tells us that Gauteng accounts for 50% of the country’s shopping centre stops and 32% of total mall visit time.

Gauteng accounts for 13 of the country’s top 20 visited malls each month, and Mall of Africa in Midrand is competing with Gateway Theatre of Shopping in Umhlanga, north of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, for the country’s number one spot.

The Mall of Africa has more than 300 stores while Gateway has around 348 stores and 70 eateries and variety of entertainment options.

Other non-Gauteng malls jostling for position are the V&A Waterfront and Canal Walk from Cape Town and Pavilion, Cornubia and Galleria in KwaZulu-Natal.

Mall of Africa is comfortably the busiest mall in the country in terms of visits and mall duration, (counting per visiting vehicle) and is followed by Menlyn Park Shopping Centre and Wonderpark Shopping Centre in Tshwane. Although Wonderpark has more than 180 stores on a single level, and is third highest in terms of number of visits, it is beaten by quite a few malls in terms of duration.

Monthly vehicle visits

Mall duration by vehicle visits

Shoppers spend most time at Sandton City and the Mall of Africa, followed by Menlyn Park and Clearwater Mall.

Average dwell time at mall

Northgate, Southgate and Carlswald Lifestyle Centre in Midrand and Woodmead (both open mall style complexes), all have a large proportion of visitors coming for less than an hour, while Mall of Africa, Menlyn Park, Sandton City and Clearwater Mall in Roodepoort account for a lesser proportion.

Distribution of time spent at malls

The income distribution of visitors at the malls are quite different, with Sandton City and Fourways attracting the largest contribution from affluent shoppers, followed by Cresta and Clearwater Mall.

Income level of visitors

Income level of visitors in absolute numbers

English is the dominant language used in most centres, followed by Afrikaans and Setswana.

Language of visitors

Carlswald is the only centre without a Woolworths store, while Checkers and Pick n Pay are in 11 of the 14 malls and Spar, because of its location strategy, is only in one.

Busiest malls in municipalities not mentioned