CBRE’s Retail Hotspots in Asia Pacific 2014reports on international retailer activity occurring in the APAC region. Established as well as emerging retail markets in the region saw 464 new retail entrants in 2014—23% more than in 2013.
Track2Realty: International expansion remains high on the agenda for retailers in 2015, in spite of uncertain economic prospects and cost escalation. CBRE’s research report, How Active are Retailers Globally?, has several interesting implications for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, with some 85% of luxury and business fashion retailers looking at the region, and 67% of coffee and restaurant retailers doing the same.
Track2Realty: Bangalore has consistently remained the preferred destination for corporate real estate occupiers in the country over the last couple of years. More recently though, our IT City outperformed itself by catapulting into the league of the top performing office markets of the Asia Pacific region during 2014—in the company of Tokyo and Shanghai.
Track2Realty: India’s logistics and warehousing real estate segment attracted steady demand during the second half of 2014—according to the latest CBRE report, India Industrial and Logistics Market View – H2 2014. Occupiers from the automotive, Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), engineering and manufacturing, and Third Party Logistics (3PLs) sectors were the principle demand drivers for warehousing space in the second half of the year.
Track2Realty: New residential unit launches across top eight cities declined by 12% y-o-y in 2014 with total launch of 153,000 units. The top three cities of Bengaluru (27%), NCR (17%) and Mumbai (16%) comprised of 60% of the total new launches in 2014, says a report by Cushman & Wakefield.
Track2Realty: Residential sales declined by approximately 30% y-o-y by the end of 2014 in the seven leading cities of the country, largely due to high price points, sticky interest rates and cautious buyer sentiments. The decline, which was noted across all major cities, was particularly steep in the DelhiNCR (National Capital Region).The slowdown was reported in the premium/luxury as well as the high-end/mid-end housing segments.
Track2Realty: Mumbai, the financial capital of India, continued its office expansion and reflected occupiers’ confidence during the year 2014. Followed by 10% in Q3, the take-up figures of office space for this city grew at 29% q-o-q (absolute terms) from 1.1 million sq. ft in Q3 to 1.42 million sq ft in Q4 2014. The office rentals stayed steady during second half of the year and experts predict a similar spectacle over the next few quarters in 2015.
Track2Realty: Almost 25% of the total warehousing/logistics space uptake across the country in 2014 was by e-retail players, while the uptake of logistics space rose by more than seven times over that of 2013. India’s online retail sector saw exponential growth, as a number of local market-specific services—such as cash on delivery (COD), multiple payment options, and EMI options—assisted in developing the growth curve of e-commerce in the country—according to the findings of CBRE’s latest special report, India Online Retail Driving Realty.
Track2Realty: Housing sales across India’s seven leading cities declined by approximately 30% on an annual basis by the end of 2014—according to the latest CBRE report, India Residential Market View – H2 2014. The general decline in the housing market was particularly steep in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), signaling the need for property prices to get rationalized in tune with average per capita income rates of home buyers.
Track2Realty: Currently, tier 2 and 3 cities account for a smaller proportion of operational shopping malls in India. However, with rising consumer aspirations and demand, the potential of these cities in terms of retail real estate is increasing. Both national and international retailers are expanding businesses in these cities, and this is fuelling demand for organized shopping spaces. While the major metro cities are continuing to launch bigger, international-standard malls, tier 2 and 3 cities are currently graduating to next level by initiation of shopping mall developments. There are notable exceptions to this – Lulu Mall in Kochi is, in fact, the largest mall in India as of today.