How Global Brands Are Shaping the Metro Manila Retailer Landscape 2021

The COVID-19 crisis has upended businesses globally, but it has been especially tough in the retail segment as the implementation of various containment measures restricts activities in the industry. The impacts of the pandemic, which reverberated after more than a year since its onset, have forced drastic changes in the behavior of people and businesses, and are expected to transcend in the post-COVID era.

The retail establishments that were once vibrant, as popular destinations not only for shopping but also for socialization, are now struggling, with various retail developers reporting footfall of below half of the pre-pandemic levels. The difficult retail environment, along with the poor performance of parent companies globally, repressed the entry of new foreign retailers in Metro Manila. For the years 2019 and 2020, the number of new foreign retailers that entered the capital region dropped to only 49 brands, 29% below the recorded 69 foreign brand entries from 2017 to 2018. Between January to November of 2021, only 10 foreign brands were added, bringing the total new international retailers in the past two years and 11 months to just 59 brands.

The latest issue of Cushman & Wakefield’s How Global Brands Are Shaping the Metro Manila Retailer Landscape, a follow-up to our 2019 report, will examine how the ongoing pandemic has altered the international retailer landscape in the Philippines.

As this report probes how the global health crisis has reshaped the Metro Manila retailer landscape and the global brands that drive it, we seek to provide relevant information that will assist stakeholders to reimagine shopping and retailing in the aftermath of COVID-19. Click here to download the report.