Aeon opens its ninth Vietnam mall in Thanh Hoa, betting on a beach-tourism corridor

Aeon will open Aeon Mall Thanh Hoa on 18 October, its ninth shopping mall in Vietnam, according to a joint statement from Aeon Co. and Aeon Mall Co. published 11 September. The complex sits in Thanh Hoa City's Quang Phu ward, about 140km south of Hanoi, and will run an Aeon-branded supermarket as its anchor tenant alongside roughly 130 specialty stores.

Thanh Hoa province has a population of about four million and has drawn industrial-park and infrastructure investment in recent years, Aeon said. The company also pointed to Sam Son, one of northern Vietnam's largest beach resorts, as a source of demand beyond the immediate area, saying it expects visits from tourists and business travellers as well as local families. The mall's stated concept is a "Family & Community Hub": of its 133 specialty tenants, about 60% — 78 stores — are new to the province, among them Uniqlo, Lacoste, Levi's, Charles & Keith and Japanese eyewear chain Jins.

The building runs five storeys above ground and one below, with total floor area of about 120,000 square metres and 52,000 square metres of leasable space. Aeon put the trade catchment at about one million people within a 30-minute drive, and said the mall and its anchor store together will employ roughly 3,500 people, including about 450 at the Aeon Thanh Hoa store itself. A roughly 10,000-square-metre indoor sports and amusement zone, including pickleball courts, and a 60-metre outdoor garden built around Thanh Hoa's bamboo are among the features the company highlighted.

The scale here sits between two other Aeon openings bookending it on the calendar: Aeon Mall Da Nang Thanh Khe, a much smaller 30,000-square-metre property Aeon opened in July, and Aeon Mall Ha Long, a 130,000-square-metre mall due in November, according to Aeon Mall's own portfolio figures. That spread suggests a company sizing its Vietnamese format to the city rather than repeating one template — a compact store for a smaller catchment in Da Nang, a full regional mall for larger provincial capitals such as Thanh Hoa and Ha Long. Betting part of the pitch on Sam Son's tourist traffic is the more interesting wrinkle: it gives Aeon a second demand source if local retail spending in a province still industrialising proves slower to build than hoped.