Shopping malls in India: It's just the beginning

The number of shopping malls mushrooming across the country's landscape may have made you wonder where they will find so many shoppers and tenants. The fact is, the mall culture is still in nascent stages in the country when compared to developed and other developing countries.

India still does not have a super mall, which is at least 11.2 lakh square feet in size, while the US had 50 of them and even South Africa 21 way back in 2005.

According to a study done by Asipac, a Bangalore-based real estate development consultancy, only the country's largest 12 malls qualify as regional malls (5-11.2 lakh sft) while Australia has 75 regional malls besides 15 super malls.

In fact, the largest Indian mall -the newly opened Mantri Square in Bangalore - is less than a fourth of the world's largest mall - the 3.77 million sft Dubai Mall).

Clearly, there's room for hundreds of more mega malls as the country continues its drive to become a super power economy with a huge middle class market.