AEON CO. (M) BHD. (AEON or the Company) today announces its financial results for the third quarter 2021 (3Q 2021) with a loss after tax of RM18.7 million after four consecutive profitable quarters throughout the pandemic.

The Company’s 3Q 2021 results are expected as the pandemic continued to disrupt the business environments, supply chains and employment which led to softer consumer sentiment. The Company has closed around 71 days of its non-essential segments during the quarter. Notwithstanding the national vaccination programme that was being rolled out, the various Movement Control Orders implemented nationwide to mitigate the infectivity risks with lockdown restrictions tightening since June 2021 have adversely impacted the Company’s revenue.

Shafie Shamsuddin, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of AEON said, “Our priority has always been about the safety and wellbeing of our employees, customers, tenants, business partners and everyone in the ecosystem. During trying times, we continued to offer relevant products and assortments in ensuring that customers always have pleasant experience at our outlets while at the same time, we focused on expediting the vaccination process for all of our key stakeholders.”

“The change in customer behaviour, coupled with the disruptions in many industries have created a big opportunity of growth. We believe we are ready as we are leaner and agile to adapt and capture the potential demand especially towards the Christmas and New Year celebrations. With the potential upside from the festivities until end of the year, we are optimistic 2021 will be a profitable financial year,” added Shafie.

The Company is ramping up its sustainability initiatives by working with multiple stakeholders including micro entrepreneurs (PUPUK@AEON Programme) and local food traders (AEON Prihatin). AEON is also targeting to have its first rooftop in AEON Mall Taman Maluri to be partially powered by solar energy by January 2022.

With the recently announced measures under the National Recovery Plan whereby business communities are progressively re-opening and inter-state travels resuming, the Company expects this would bolster consumer confidence and thereby improvement to the overall revenue, both retail and property segment. The forthcoming year end and festivities make it promising for footfalls to continue in an upward trend as well as improvement in tenancy including the temporary event spaces.

As the near-term challenges remain with the COVID-19 endemic, the Company is cautiously optimistic of better performance in 4Q 2021, and will continue to monitor and assess business conditions, whilst remaining proactive to ensure the safe shopping and working environment for its customers and employees. To date, the Company has achieved more than 99% vaccination rate of its employees and AEON ecosystems, and will continue its preventive sanitisation of all its premises on a weekly basis.