Leasing in Chennai remained robust, with industrial and warehousing space take-up in Q1 2024 almost twice the leasing activity in corresponding period of last year. Across the top five cities, Bhiwandi in Mumbai with 1.7 million sq ft of Grade A demand, was the most active market for Q1 2024. Bhiwandi was followed by Oragadam in Chennai, which surpassed the leasing activity of Chakan Talegoan in Pune for the first time in a while, the report noted.

Third-party logistics players (3PL) continued to be the top occupiers of industrial and warehousing space, contributing to over 40% in the total warehousing demand.

3PL space uptake was driven by healthy activity in Chennai particularly. The city accounted for about 43% of the overall 3PL activity in the top five cities. Interestingly, at the Pan-India level, retail players accounted for 16% of the demand during the quarter, followed by engineering and automobile players with 12% share each, the report said.

“While 3PL players continued to drive industrial and warehousing leasing activity, demand from retail, engineering and automobile players too accounted for a significant share in Q1 2024. It is noteworthy to see that the cumulative share of these three sectors have risen from 26% in Q1 2023 to 40% in Q1 2024. This signifies changing consumption patterns and hints at opportunities emerging in the sector from the steady demand diversification,” said Vijay Ganesh, Managing Director, Industrial & Logistics Services, Colliers India.

Retail and E-commerce segment witness over 2X surge in leasing

E-commerce segment has seen robust growth post Covid-19 and witnessed 2.3X times leasing during Q1 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. With increased focus on digital infrastructure and changing consumption patterns, e-commerce segment is further likely to warm up and create more demand for warehouses. Moreover, the rise of Q-commerce players is also likely to catalyze demand for bigger hub-warehouses.

Large sized deals account for over 50% of industrial and warehousing space demand

During Q1 2024, large deals (>200,000 sq ft) accounted for 51% of the demand, a significant rise from about 40% share during 2023. Amongst these larger deals, 3PL companies continued to account for the bulk of share. However, the rise in share of large deals was driven by large space uptake, particularly by retail and e-commerce players during the quarter. Chennai followed by Mumbai dominated the proportion of large-sized deals across the top five cities.

“While the average quarterly industrial and warehousing space demand in the last two years has been at around 6 mn sq ft, average incremental supply has been comparatively lower. With continued healthy leasing activity in last few quarters, developer confidence seems to have significantly improved. With a Grade A supply pipeline of about 23-25 mn sq ft for the year 2024, supply is likely to closely follow demand trend across the top five cities of the country," said Vimal Nadar, senior director and head of research, Colliers India.

Vacancy levels largely remain range bound

Supply infusion during the quarter was almost in line with the leasing activity, indicating improved developer confidence for the industrial and warehousing sector. At 11% by the end of first quarter, vacancy levels however increased by 120 bps as compared to Q4 of last year on account of churn and exits in the industrial and warehousing space.

Amidst healthy demand and supply, rentals remained range bound and rose by about 8% in select micro markets of Chennai and Pune, the report added.