Market Trends of Asia Pacific Flexible Office Industry
This section covers the major market trends shaping the APAC Flexible Office Market according to our research experts:
Increase in number of startups in APAC region
Start-ups have been commonly associated with the move towards the adoption of more flexible workspace but of equal importance is the expansion into new markets and accommodating project-based teams. 'Scale-ups' are another type of organisation who have been adopting flex space, allowing greater agility, lower risk, and more flexibility to add additional desks when required. From a sector perspective, enquiries come from Financial, Technology, Consulting and Professional service companies in equal measure with their sizes and requirements also highly varied. New Delhi proved to be the city that exhibited the largest growth in the number of coworking centers not just throughout the Asia Pacific region but globally because of the huge rise in the number of startups and small scale comanies emerging in the city. The Asia-Pacific countries have begun to showcase their business style with an increasing number of successful new businesses. In recent years, one of the most successful new companies in China was the startup Ant Financial now known as Ant Group. China has by far the greatest number of unicorns, followed by India and these are one of the leading countries for the flexible office spaces market in the APAC region.
Hybrid co-working working model taking pace in APAC
The total volume of flexible office space in the Asia Pacific reached 74 million sq. ft. as of October 2020, accounting for more than 4% of total regional office stock, according to the latest industry data. The Asia-Pacific region (APAC) has stood out in the coworking market - it is currently, the largest coworking market in the world. As per industry reports, it is noted that around 300 co-working spaces are located in Asia Pacific gateway cities including Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, and Melbourne. In Singapore, coworking spaces have tripled since 2015. Shared working space is projected to increase from 10% to 15% of the total office supply by 2030.
Many Southeast Asian cities such as Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta are also notedly home to a generous host of diverse and extremely price-competitive coworking spaces. Hong Kong, another Asian economic powerhouse, has about 166 coworking spaces, closely rivaling the number of coworking spaces in London and New York City. Both Asian cities have been noted to be some of the fast-growing markets for flexible workspaces, albeit the short-term deceleration of growth due to pandemic.
