2025年上半年中国零售地产与消费市场年度研究报告（英）

August 2025China Retail Property MarketResearch Report 1H2025Retail ResearchDespite a June slowdown in catering (growth receding to 0.9% YoY, a post-2023 recovery low), China’s consumer macro data showed broad stability in H1 2025, with total retail sales reaching CNY 24.5 trillion (+5.0% YoY, accelerating 0.4 ppts from Q1). Merchandise retail (+5.1%) surpassed catering revenue (+4.3%) for the first time in recent years. Government subsidies drove significant out-performance in household appliances & AV equipment (+30.7% y-o-y) and culture/office supplies (+25.4%, y-o-y), while telecom, furniture, and sports/entertainment sectors all exceeded 20% growth. Conversely, automobiles (+0.8%), apparel and footwear (+3.1%), and cosmetics (+2.9%) remained sluggish, signaling caution for retail property demand. The "618" festival lifted online sales growth to 8.5%, narrowing the offline-online growth gap — a positive signal for physical retail — with e-commerce penetration rebounding to 24.9%. Holiday tourism revenue grew nearly 10%, supported by record inbound tourism from visa-free countries.In the first half of this year, new supply additions across 21 major Chinese cities totaled 2.1 million sqm, representing a 27.5% y-o-y decline, signaling that China’s prime retail property market has entered a phase of supply-side deceleration; tier-1 cities accounted for a dominant 61.0% share of this supply (with Beijing and Shenzhen ranking as the top two contributors), reflecting the strategic refocusing of commercial development toward high-tier cities amid risk pressures. According to statistics from 40 major cities, the top 30 leading developers now command over 50% market share, continuing their dominance in retail development. Despite this contraction in new supply, the average vacancy rate continued to climb, increasing by 0.3 ppts to 10.5% during H1 according to JLL data. Breaking down by city tier: Tier-1 cities saw vacancies rise by 1.1 ppts to 8.4%, primarily driven by concentrated project completions; Tier-1.5 cities stabilized at 10.8%; while Tier-2 cities recorded a marginal decline of 0.1 ppts to 12.1%. Near-term projections indicate that China’s retail property vacancy rates are approaching cyclical peaks and may begin declining within 12 months. Incremental retail demand remains constrained by dual pressures: structural shifts and a tightening fundamental base. On one hand, tenant demand is pivoting from high-rent categories toward low-rent operators, driving structural erosion in overall rents; simultaneously, retailers face weakened affordability due to compressed sales volumes, further reducing percentage of rental turnover incomes. Consequently, prime ground-floor rents across these 21 cities contracted by 2.8% YTD H1 2025 on average, with Q2’s drop exceeding that of Q1.03 3637Despite prevailing market caution, emerging opportunities are crystallizing as China’s retail property vacancy rates stabilize. Four transformational shifts are reshap