s a portfolio of 85 department stores, 87 home improvement superstores, 695 supermarkets, 41 hypermarkets, 13 wholesale warehouses and a slew of specialty retail brands across multiple categories, totalling 3844 sales locations in all. Its operations are primarily in Thailand, Vietnam and Italy, where it owns the Rinascente department store chain. The company’s portfolio will be even larger by the end of this year, when, if things go according to plan, there will be four more home improvement stores, 10 more supermarkets and food halls, and four more Go Wholesale warehouses in Thailand, plus two more Go! hypermarkets and three more Mini Go! stores in Vietnam, compared to the number at the end of last year. Same-store sales still lag Total company revenues advanced 3 per cent on a year-over-year basis to 61.1 billion Thai baht (US$1.9 billion) in the first quarter. Central has several revenue streams, but by far the largest is its retail sales, which rose 2.9 per cent. That growth, in turn, was driven largely by food sales, which took off by nearly 10 per cent thanks in part to the opening of three new Go Wholesale stores in provincial capital cities, a Tops supermarket in Bangkok and five Tops Daily convenience stores scattered around the country. Meanwhile, the fashion and hardlines segments both saw their sales fall slightly. Same-store sales didn’t impress: food (-3 per cent), hardlines (-7 per cent) and fashion (-4 per cent) were all in the red. The decline was across all of the geographies: -2 per cent in Thailand and -7 per cent in Vietnam, but flat when adjusted for currency fluctuation, and -10 per cent in Italy, or -3 per cent when adjusted. Central Retail also operates 75 malls in Thailand and Vietnam, encompassing 760,000sqm of leasable area. The malls are smaller than the big regional/superregionals operated by sibling company Central Pattana and tend to be located in second-tier or infill markets. Rental and service income from these was slightly down year-on-year, partly due to ongoing renovations that are causing some rental space to be offline. Gross profit margin on sales for the quarter fell 40 basis points to 24.7 per cent, which the company attributed to a shift in the sales mix to lower margin items and an increased consumer focus on value. After tax profit was up strongly to 2.5 billion baht (US$75 million). Interestingly, despite steady growth over the past several years, the contribution of omnichannel sales to total company sales remains pretty much the same as it was in 2021, at 20 per cent. The stronger growth in food sales relative to the two other segments means that food has rocketed up to 44 per cent of sales. The contribution of hardlines remains at 30 per cent while fashion’s share has dropped to 26 per cent. However, fashion is the high-margin business, contributing 46 per cent of earnings. Central Pattana’s malls continue to do a brisk business Central Pattana, meanwhile, is easily Thailand’s most consequential mall operator and global retailer platform. It reported another strong first quarter for the retail and hotel components of its integrated developments, which both grew in the high mid-single-digit percentages. The occupancy rate at its regional/superregional malls and community malls improved slightly to 92 per cent, with the more recently opened malls (Central Westville, Central Nakhon Sawan and Central Nakhon Pathom) gradually filling out. According to the company’s analysis of its results, the current drivers of growth are, first and foremost, same-store rental revenue growth because of higher tenant sales. The comment about same-store sales is slightly at odds with what was reported by Central Retail. The top line total revenue numbers for the quarter were not exactly flattering, dragged down by a sharp decrease in residential sales income and ‘other’ income, the latter consisting largely of property management fees. Total revenues came in at 12.2 billion baht (US$370 million), down 1 per cent on last year, but the bottom line was solid with net income of 4.2 billion baht (US$130 million), up 2 per cent on last year. Central Pattana has again been able to cut operating costs by implementing efficiency improvements, including the installation of solar panels to cut electricity costs, aided somewhat by cooler weather this year than in the corresponding period of 2024. Central Pattana opened a new community mall during the quarter, Market Place Theprak in northeast Bangkok: it represents a new concept that integrates a community mall with a fresh market with a total area of approximately 7000sqm. Central Pattana now has a portfolio of 40 regional/superregional malls in Thailand – 17 in Bangkok and 23 in the provinces – and 16 community malls. The hotel, office and residential properties partly function to ‘densify’ the trade area of its malls. Closing thought about uncertainties Many retailers and mall operators just can’t seem to kick the habit of including, usually starting, their analysis of financial results by telling investors that they are facing ‘uncertainties’ in the domestic and global business environment. Central Retail has just done it again, and, as one might expect, US trade policy is currently the convenient go-to source of uncertainty. But no one knows the future, even in the calmest of times: there will always be uncertainties, and when you take a step back, you can argue plausibly that these are not particularly turbulent times for retailers at all. (Compare, for example, the brouhaha now about US tariffs, which is the biggest issue currently on the table for many countries, with the mountain of uncertainties facing companies in March 2020, or during the global financial crisis of 2008.) Uncertainties abound, and the best retailers get on with the job and thrive despite them.