New Delhi: The share of co-working spaces in the overall leasing activity of offices in the country has continuously been rising for the past few years and has touched 12 percent in quarter one (Q1) of the current calendar year in the top seven cities. The share of the same was just five percent in 2017, according to a report by report by real estate body NAREDCO and consulting firm KPMG.
The size of leasing transactions by the co-working players has risen to 77,000 sq ft in Q1 of 2019 as against a total of 37,000 sq ft in the whole of 2017. There are now 12-16 million co-working seats in the country that are provided by about 330 operators in around 400 shared workspaces in the country.
The share of co-working spaces in overall office space leasing has gone up to 9 percent in 2018 in Delhi NCR as compared to 4 percent in 2017. The same has gone up to 14 percent in 2018 as against 11 percent in Mumbai. In Bengaluru, the share has gone up to 10 percent in 2018 as against mere 3 percent in 2017. In Chennai, it has increased to 10 percent in 2018 as compared to just 2 percent in 2017. In Hyderabad, it has risen from 4 percent in 2017 to 5 percent in 2018.
As co-working spaces get popular, almost all incumbents of the real estate landscape like start-ups, real estate developers, PE-funded retail developers and hospitality players are exploring having their own shared workspaces. They are adopting one of three prevalent operating models for setting up co-working business- revenue sharing, sub leasing and own and operate models.