Australian property group Vicinity Centres has reported an 11 per cent boom in jewellery sales across its shopping centre portfolio for the six months to December 2025.
Growth in jewellery sales is relatively on par with sales in the leisure retail category.
Fashion sits at the other end of the growth scale, with apparel and footwear sales across Vicinity Centres up just 1.8 per cent in the six months to December 2025.
Fashion sales were stronger in the final two months of 2025, up 1.4 per cent year-on-year. Apparel and footwear sales are the lowest across the core retail categories, with the second lowest sales growth in the six months to December 2025 being retail services.
Across store types, specialty stores, including fashion, saw sales growth of 5.2 per cent in the six months to December 2025. Mini-majors – think JB Hi Fi and Rebel – saw higher sales growth in the six months to June 2025, then up 8.8 per cent, and the second highest growth in the six months to December 2025, up 5.1 per cent.
Other retail, which includes cinemas, travel agents, auto accessories, lotteries and other entertainment, saw a 5.7 per cent sales growth in the six months to December 2025, which was softer in the six months to June 2025, then up just 0.5 per cent.
Department store sales growth was also relatively slow through 2025, with sales up just 1.4 oer cent in the six months to December 2025, with sales falling in November and December by 0.8 per cent. Department store sales grew strongest in the six months to June 2025, up 3.3 per cent.
Meanwhile, discount department stores, including the likes of Kmart, Target and Big W, saw similar stronger growth in the six months to June, up 4.1 per cent, with sales in November and December up 2.6 per cent.
According to Vicinity Centres, apparel and footwear represent 28 per cent of total rent transacted in the first half of FY26, with the category achieving a 7.2 per cent lift in leasing spread in that time, primarily driven by Chadstone and Outlet Centres.
“The confluence of strengthening shopper confidence and capacity to spend, together with our active tenant remixing and enhanced retail asset portfolio, underpinned 4.2 per cent growth in total portfolio retail sales in 1H FY26 and notably, a 3 per cent uplift in specialty sales productivity, to $13,425 per square metre,” Vicinity Centres CEO and managing director, Peter Huddle, said.
“Having observed robust retail sales growth in 2H FY25 (up 4.7 per cent), we were pleased to see the positive momentum maintained in 1H FY26, with specialty and mini major retail sales up by 5.1 per cent.”
On a moving annual total basis (MAT), Huddle added that robust sales growth in the second half of FY25 and in the first half of FY26 underpinned a 120-basis point uplift in MAT growth to 4.9 per cent.