Westfield Stratford City has notched up almost £500m of sales since opening last September.

The Australian developer said the performance was “well ahead of forecasts” and 23 million customers have visited the centre, representing an average of 800,000 customer visits per week.

Sales for the 12 months to March 31 at Westfield London were £968m, up 7.1% and up 2.2% for the quarter.

Occupancy rates at the developer’s UK centres are running at 99%.

Westfield group co-chief executive Steven Lowy said: “This year our two world class centres in London are together expected to attract around 50-60 million customer visits spending some £2bn.”

Group performance in the first quarter was “solid” across the company’s UK, Australian and American businesses.

Lowy added: “Our operating performance for the first quarter this year saw continuing high levels of occupancy, growth in average rents and comparable specialty sales growth in each of our regions. The level of bad debts and arrears across the Group for the quarter also remain very low and in line with previous years.”