mumbaibangalore the slowdown in the indian realty sector has surprisingly not hampered the development of new malls across the country india has 570 operational malls as of may 2013 with a total area of 180 million sq ft compared to just 225 malls that were up and running five years ago according to numbers collated by a real estate consultancy firm which were shared with toi exclusively the seven metros have 190 operational malls even as more than 60 opened across india in the last one year alone data from bangalorebased asipac consulting says and its not just the number of malls that has more than doubled since 2008 the average area of the top 15 malls across the country has gone up 40 from 617 lakh sq ft to 866 lakh sq ft in the last three years developers such as the rahejas inorbit phoenix market city dlf and prestige forum are now building larger malls as these have a better chance of succeeding in an overcrowded marketplace the report from asipac says industry experts say consumers prefer bigger malls which offer more brands under one roof rather than visiting multiple malls mirroring what happened in the mature retail markets years ago with easing of the fdi policy international retailers coming to india are expected to occupy larger spaces thereby increasing revenues if the anchor tenants occupy larger spaces it would benefit retailers as well as the consumer who can expect prices to come down by 1015 in these largeformat stores as a consequence the revenue of the mall would definitely go up says pushpa bector senior vp head leasing mall management dlf mall of india which opens early next year in noida the mall spread across 19 million sq ft will have 14 anchor tenants including brands like uniqlo which will make its debut in india a dipstick done by asipac shows around 40 of the malls in the country are performing well of the ones doing well most grew by about 16 last year and 12 in financial year 2013 not bad considering the overall macro situation in the country bigger malls may not succeed immediately but they eventually pull in people because of the mix of brands that they offer says amit bagaria founder asipac group over the next three years the average area of the top 15 malls is projected to go over 103 lakh sq ft based on ongoing construction the report says indicating the preference for building larger shopping complexes the average daily footfall in phoenix marketcity the largest mall in terms of size is 65789 compared to 90803 for gip noida ranked seventh on the list shashie kumar senior centre director at phoenix marketcity bangalore says over the last few years the focus of consumers has evidently shifted to larger mall spaces even as there has been proliferation of micromarkets within cities however some developers feel currently the country does not have as much supply to fill up large