The world's largest shopping mall owner, Westfield Group, says it has experienced strong occupancy levels and solid demand from retailers for space in third quarter.

The group says its highlights include the opening of five major development projects worth $1.5 billion in four weeks.

They include the Derby redevelopment in East Midlands, the redevelopment of Kotara in Newcastle, the redevelopment of Annapolis in Maryland and the development of a new centre in Albany on Auckland's North Shore in New Zealand.

Westfield Group Managing Director, Steven Lowy, said the delivery of the five major projects across four countries in a four week period was unprecedented.

"Each project has delivered a strong yield and created significant long term value for the group," Mr Lowy said.

"These projects completed at an aggregate cost of $1.5 billion (Westfield Group investment $1.0 billion) have delivered strong investment returns, achieving a weighted average income yield of 9.4 per cent thereby being accretive to the Group's operational and development earnings."

Mr Lowy said the redevelopment of Westfield Derby was the group's first development in the United Kingdom and was delivered six months ahead of the original schedule and in line with forecast.

"The successful delivery of our first UK project at Derby is particularly significant for the group, confirming our ability to transfer development expertise to a new market," Mr Lowy said.

Mr Lowy said the group's global development program continued to enhance the value and market penetration of the existing portfolio.

Westfield currently has $5.6 billion of development projects underway and in excess of $10 billion of new development projects expected to commence over the next three years.

Westfield said there was strong occupancy levels and continued solid demand from retailers across all markets.

Quarterly sales growth in Australia was 5.6 per cent, in the United Kingdom 2.1 per cent, the United States 1.9 per cent and New Zealand, up 2.2 per cent.

The company said it was well positioned to start $10 billion (Westfield's share $9 billion) of new development projects over the next three years.

Among the eleven projects currently under construction, which will cost a total of $5.6 billion (Westfield's share, $3.7 billion) six are in the United States, four in Australia and New Zealand and one in the United Kingdom.

In terms of shopping centre performance, Westfield said it had leased 99.5 per cent of its Australian and New Zealand portfolio, at $1,247 per square metre in Australia and $NZ1,031 per square metre in New Zealand, a five per cent growth rate.

In the United States, 93.5 per cent of the portfolio is leased, at $US44.23 per square foot, a 4.5 per cent growth rate, while 99 per cent of the portfolio is leased in the United Kingdom, at STG 644 per square metre, a three per cent growth rate.

Specialty store sales in the United States had grown at 1.9 per cent in the last three months, 2.4 per cent in the last nine months and 2.5 per cent in a year.

In Australia, specialty stores had grown at seven per cent in the last three months, 6.6 per cent in nine months and 6.2 per cent in a year, while major stores grew at 3.1 per cent in the three months.

United Kingdom store sales have stayed almost steady throughout the year - between 2.1 per cent and 2.7 per cent.

In terms of retail sales growth by category, in Australia, leisure stores experienced the greatest growth in a year at 11.4 per cent, followed by jewellery stores with 10.1 per cent, while discount department stores experienced the lowest growth levels at 1.3 per cent.

In three months, the greatest retail sales growth came from cinemas at 23.5 per cent, followed by leisure stores at 14.9 per cent, while the least growth came from supermarkets at 2.1 per cent.

In the United States, jewellery stores experienced the least amount of growth by contracting 1.8 per cent in the year, while leisure stores experienced the greatest growth levels at 7.2 per cent in a year and 14.1 per cent in three months.

Women's ready-to-wear fashion stores had the least amount of sales growth in three months, contracting 5.1 per cent.

AAP