In 2024, Dubai Duty Free recorded over 20.733 million sales transactions, an average of 56,649 sales transactions per day, while a staggering 55.137 million units of merchandise were sold. It is also estimated that over 13.7 million customers shopped in DDF’s Arrivals and Departures stores in 2024.
The top five selling categories for the year were Perfumes followed by Liquor, Cigarettes & Tobacco, Gold and Electronics. With sales of US$411 million, perfumes contributed 19% of total sales and retained its position once again as the top selling category with growth of 9.79% over last year.
Sales of liquor reached US$289 million and accounted for 13% of the total annual sales with a decline of 6.6% over last year. The DDF sold 5,323,624 of beer cans; 2,010,287 of whisky bottles 745,414 wine bottles and 4,747,264 liquor bottles.
Meanwhile, cigarettes and tobacco recorded sales of US$221 million and contributed 10% towards total revenue with growth of 8.27% over last year. Gold came in fourth place with sales amounting to US$213 million and accounted for 10% of total revenue and just higher last year. Electronics came in fifth place with sales of US$149million and accounted for 7% of total annual sales but dropped 13% compared to last year. Online sales topped US$54 million accounting for 2.5% of the overall sales tally for 2024.
Sales in Departures across the operation was US$1.951 billion representing 90% of total annual sales and grew 0.84% over last year, while Arrivals sales totalled US$147 million, representing 6.8% of total annual sales and declined 12.21% over last year.
Dubai Duty Free has achieved a new milestone with October sales of US$220.7 million and marking its eighth-record month out of ten this year. Ranked first among the eight record-breaking months in 2025, October sales exceeded the previous October record set in 2023 of US$189 million, underscoring the operation’s sustained growth momentum. October also recorded the third-highest monthly sales in Dubai Duty Free’s history, following the all-time record of US$225 million achieved in December 2024.
In a strong indicator of retail performance, October’s sales growth outstripped passenger traffic by at least 10%, achieving an impressive 19.31% increase over October 2024.
Commenting on the performance, Ramesh Cidambi, Managing Director of Dubai Duty Free said, “A big thank you goes to our Chairman, H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum for his unwavering support to our operation. Thanks also to the team at Dubai Duty Free for their extraordinary hard work and dedication in meeting the needs of an ever-increasing number of passengers.”
Year-to-date total sales reached US$1.885 billion, representing an 8.72% increase or US$151 million over the same period last year. Liquor had sales of US$26.5 million in October alone.