SM Prime Holdings Inc. will open four new malls this year, including SM City Bacolod, and expand three of its existing malls with a capital expenditure of P7 billion.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday, SM Prime said first to open this year is the mall in Bacolod, on March 2, while the three others, SM City Taytay, SM Supercenter Muntinlupa and Sunset Strip at the Esplanade in Manila, later this year.

Malls up for expansion are SM City Cebu, SM City Fairview, and SM City San Fernando, Pampanga.

With the five malls opened last year, including flagship SM Mall of Asia, SM Prime currently has 27 malls in the country. It also disclosed to the PSE that the company's 2006 net income increased 10 percent to P5.45 billion, mainly from higher mall and cinema ticket sales.

SM Prime said its operating revenues rose 21 percent to P13.2 billion from the past year while its cinema ticket sales also grew by 22 percent to P1.6 billion in 2006.

The mall operator said in a statement that growth was mainly derived from the same mall sales of 6.0 percent and the five new malls that SM Prime opened in 2006, which increased its gross floor area by 23 percent to 3.5 million square meters. SM Prime president Hans Sy said the company's 2006 results reinforce their dominant and profitable position in the Philippine mall business.*NLG

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