India office leasing in top six cities falls over 50% in 2020: Savills India

New Delhi, Office space absorption across six major cities in India fell over 50% to 27.4 million square feet in 2020, according to a Savills India report.

In 2019, office space spread over 55.7 million square feet was leased.

Out of the total office leases in 2020, around 57% comprised large deals of more than 1,00,000 square feet each.

The report said that Bengaluru led the leasing activity among the major cities despite a drop of 56% compared with last year, posting maximum office absorption of 6.8 million square feet space.

Hyderabad followed closely with leasing of 5.4 million square feet in 2020. Leasing of office space in the National Capital Region (NCR) stood at 4.4 million square feet.

Like previous year, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and NCR constituted around 61% of the total leasing activity in 2020 as well, showed the report.

Savills India also pointed out that Mumbai, India's financial capital, recorded around 2.9 million square feet of leasing through the year, the least absorption witnessed among the six cities.

"The overall story of 2020 is the one of survival, and most markets did exactly that. While the story of Indian office market in 2020 may not be as glorious as in 2019 and 2018, it still continues to strive and display resilience, in the face of COVID-induced slowdown," said Anurag Mathur, CEO, Savills India.

He noted that the fundamentals of Indian economy remain intact and strong leasing traction continues in sectors like warehousing and industrial.

"Now with the coronavirus vaccine in sight and businesses poised to gain momentum, we can expect to reach pre-COVID levels soon," Mathur said.


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