Over 13 million people will work out of co-working spaces by 2020, with tier 2 and 3 cities leading the demand. This flexible office space demand is expected to grow at 40 to 50 per cent in India this year, higher than Asia Pacific’s rate of 35.7 per cent, according to a research by JLL.

The potential market size of co-working across India is expected to be 13.5 million users by 2020 about half of which will be from enterprises, which are expected to take up 10.3 mn seats, said the report on ‘Spotting the opportunities: flexible space in Asia Pacific’.

“Rise of the millennials and a large, vibrant start-up ecosystem are the key factors contributing to this trend in India. “By the end of the year, we anticipate flexible workplaces would attract investment upto $400 mn,” said Sandeep Sethi, MD, Integrated Facilities Management West Asia, JLL.

With over 200 premium business centres across the country, set to double by 2020, co-working spaces will reflect the global trend of being closer to 20 percent of total workspace, he added.

Freelancers and SMEs are expected to contribute 1.5 million users worth of demand, while startups will bring demand upto 100,000 seats by 2020. The report further indicates, that the top 6 cities[1] will require an estimated 5 million seats in co-working spaces, while, 8.5 million of the projected demand will be in Tier 2 and 3 cities.

While the growth of this segment in India has been phenomenal, most corporates are in pilot or experimentation phases. And corporates hin India want to better understand and mitigate, the potential challenges before adopting the model, it added.

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