The Mall of Africa in Gauteng was SA’s busiest shopping centre (based on vehicle stops) between January and August 2024, according to aggregated and anonymised telemetry data made available to Lightstone Tracker, with Sandton City, Nelson Mandela Square and KwaZulu-Natal’s Gateway Theatre of Shopping not far behind.
While the Mall of Africa was the busiest by this measure, it is the smallest centre of the three with 131 000m2 of retail space, less than Sandton City and Nelson Mandela Square’s combined 146 000m2 and Gateway Theatre of Shopping’s 176 398m2, says Mohit Narotam, head of Retail at Lightstone.
Three busiest malls based on vehicle traffic.
The data also reveals that the average dwell time at the three centres tracked each other with shoppers spending the most time at Sandton City and Nelson Mandela Square and the least time at Gateway Theatre of Shopping.
However, dwell times at the three centres started to decline in June 2024, and while Gateway Theatre of Shopping has levelled out at around 75 minutes, the other two were still dropping.
Average dwell time.
When reviewing shopper income levels, Sandton City and Nelson Mandela Square dominated the ‘Affluent’ category while Mall of Africa came first in both the lower income and mid-level income categories.
Income levels of visitors.
“While most shopping centres have recently reported higher foot traffic, our data suggested vehicle visits to two centres – Fourways Mall and Mall of Africa – have not in fact recovered to pre-Covid levels, as the graph below demonstrates,” he explains.
“Of course, many visit malls are by public transport or by foot, so foot traffic could inevitably exceed vehicle traffic. The data may also reflect a growing shift to online shopping, which accelerated during Covid, and might be leading to more permanent shopper behavioural change, both in terms of number of visits and dwell times“.
The average number of mall visits per vehicle per year was 139 in 2019, but this had fallen to 128 in 2023. Fourways Mall is in Sandton, not far from Mall of Africa, and is South Africa’s largest centre with 178 000m² of retail space.
