NEW DELHI: India’s office sector recorded 89 million sq ft of gross leasing volume (GLV) across eight cities, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
This year, leasing activity surpassed 2023’s peak by a substantial 14 million sq ft, marking a 19% increase.
Veera Babu, managing director, tenant representation, Cushman & Wakefield said, “2024 has been exceptional, even surpassing our bullish mid-year projections of demand crossing 80 million sq ft. Key cities such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad saw record-high leasing activity, supported by strong demand coming from IT-BPM, manufacturing and BFSI sectors.”
Bengaluru led the charge, accounting for 29% of India’s gross leasing volume (25.93 million sq ft), followed by Mumbai at 20% (17.84 million sq ft) and Delhi-NCR at 15% (13.14 million sq ft).
Hyderabad and Pune rounded off the top five cities with shares of 14% (12.31 million sq ft) and 10% (8.47 million sq ft) respectively.
Notably, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad, all recorded their highest-ever leasing volumes this year too.
Net absorption was also at 50 million sq ft, surpassing the pre-Covid peak of 2019 by a significant 7 million sq ft.
Bengaluru, once again, topped the list with 14.18 million sq ft of net absorption, capturing 28% of the total net absorption.
Mumbai at 10.93 million sq ft, Hyderabad at 8.18 million sq ft and Delhi-NCR at 7.06 million sq ft.
The year witnessed only ~45 million sq ft of new grade-A completions. This has led to a vacancy rate of ~16% in 2024, a drop of 1.8-2% from last year.
