According to research by Experian, the leading global provider of retail property information on high streets and shopping centres, Belfast tops the list with retailers in the city raking in £924 million this year, followed by Lisburn which took £461 million.

According to the findings which are published in the first Irish Retail Centre Ranking Report, the Victoria Square and Royal Exchange developments in Belfast should ensure that the city will continue to be the dominant centre in the Province in the next 10 years.

In a list covering 60 shopping centres, cities and towns across Northern Ireland, those featuring in the top 10 include Newtownabbey’s Abbey Centre in third place with shoppers spending £399 million, followed by Londonderry (£398 million), Ballymena (£302 million), Newtownards Shopping Centre (£284 million), Craigavon’s Rushmere Centre (£276 million), Newry (£233 million), Coleraine (£204 million) and Enniskillen (£177 million).

Shopping centres rank well in the listings with six major shopping centres in the top 20 retail outlets for Northern Ireland.

The Connswater Centre in Belfast takes eleventh place (£167 million) while Sprucefield near Lisburn (£144 million) is fourteenth and the Bloomfield Centre in Belfast is seventeenth (£122 million).

The Experian report also unveils the future landscape of Northern Ireland’s retail centres. The biggest gain in retail expenditure will be seen in Belfast, which will gain a 25 per cent uplift in spending to approximately £1.15 billion by 2018, while one of the biggest falls in expenditure could take place in Enniskillen where Experian estimate expenditure will fall by up to 38 per cent to £109 million as a result of potential new developments and extensions going on around the region.

The report examines all major retail centres in Northern Ireland, assessing them on a number of key performance indicators such as the size of the centre by floorspace, the number of major multiples, comparison stores and quality independent retailers.

Negative factors, such as the amount of vacant floorspace is also taken into account.

The forecasts for 2018 are based on Experian’s ‘gravity’ model which calculates the amount of comparison goods expenditure a centre is likely to attract given the strength of its retail offer and the levels of competition around it.

Jonathan de Mello, director of Retail Consultancy, Experian, said now for the first time there was an accurate and “very powerful measure of retail expenditure for every significant retail location in Northern Ireland”.