Office space leasing market in India saw a robust 14 per cent year-on-year growth during 2024, while the overall leasing across the top six cities crossed 66.4 million square feet, said a report on Tuesday.
Bengaluru dominated Grade A office space demand, witnessing the highest ever volume of leasing at 21.7 million square feet with 40 percent growth, according to Colliers.
Demand scale-up was visible in Hyderabad and Mumbai as well. Both cities witnessed double-digit annual office space demand for the first time in 2024 with 12.5 and 10.0 million square feet of leasing activity respectively.
Delhi-NCR too witnessed healthy space uptake and Grade A demand almost touched 10 million square feet mark in 2024.
New supply during the year also remained above the 50 million sq feet mark and kept vacancy levels rangebound. 2025 demand can potentially stabilise at elevated levels and annual space uptake exceeding 60 million sq feet is likely to be the new norm over the next few years," explained Arpit Mehrotra, Managing Director, Office services, India, Colliers.
The fourth quarter (Q4) 2024 was the most leased quarter of the year, with 19.7 million square feet, a 14 per cent increase from the previous quarter.
Flex spaces achieved their highest ever quarterly leasing at 4.7 million square feet. The demand for flex space accounted for 24 per cent of Grade A space uptake in Q4 2024.
While technology sector continued to drive annual office space demand with almost one-fourth share in overall leasing, flex spaces accounted for almost one-fifth of the Grade A space uptake in 2024.
BFSI and engineering and manufacturing sectors too demonstrated healthy leasing activity, both crossing the 10 million square feet leasing this year.
The occupier preference for managed office spaces bodes well for leading operators, who are likely to increasingly foray into tier 2/3 cities throughout 2025 and expedite their fund-raising plans through primary markets as well," said Vimal Nadar, Senior Director and Head of Research, Colliers India.
On the supply side, Q4 2024 saw 15.9 million sq feet of new completions that pushed the total to 53.3 million sq feet for the year, the report added.
Read also| Bangladesh Faces Rs 200 Crore Electricity Bill Debt to Tripura
Read also| GST Council Issues Clarification on Popcorn Taxation
