Kamal Ghorui
Foreign firms leased a record 9.1 million square feet of office space across India’s top nine cities during the January-March quarter to set up Global Capability Centres (GCCs), highlighting strong demand for workspaces, PTI reported citing CBRE data.Real estate consultant CBRE said total gross leasing of office space rose 5% to 20.7 million square feet in the quarter, compared with 19.7 million square feet in the year-ago period.The nine cities covered in the report include Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Kochi.Leasing for GCCs stood at a record 9.1 million square feet in the March quarter, the highest ever for any quarter.“The record GCC leasing activity is a definitive signal of India’s position as the global destination of choice for high-complexity capability functions,” said Anshuman Magazine, Chairman & CEO, India, South-East Asia, Middle East & Africa, CBRE.He added that demand is broad-based across sectors such as e-commerce, technology and BFSI.“The demand is increasingly being driven by mid-market and nano GCCs alongside established Fortune 500 occupiers,” Magazine said.According to CBRE, American firms accounted for 73% of the total GCC leasing during the quarter.Ram Chandnani, Managing Director, Leasing Services, India, CBRE, said occupiers are increasingly preferring green-certified and amenity-rich office spaces.“As occupiers adopt AI-ready workspace strategies and GCCs evolve into multi-functional innovation hubs, we expect leasing momentum to remain healthy through 2026,” he said.Bengaluru led office leasing activity with a 29% share, followed by Delhi-NCR at 22% and Mumbai at 16%.Together, these three cities accounted for around 67% of the total office leasing across the nine cities during the January-March period, the consultant said.
