Apple in talks for 3.5-lakh sq ft Bengaluru office for retail centre
India’s pandemic-battered commercial property leasing market is being propped up by deals in and around Bengaluru and Hyderabad, even as other big cities such as Mumbai and NCR see transactions limping back to normalcy.
Apple is negotiating with builders for a 350,000 sq ft office space in Bengaluru which will serve its global markets, and plans to open a large retail centre in the city, people in the know told ET. There’s another big deal in the works — US-based financial services firm Wells Fargo is in talks for 1.4 million sq ft of office space in Hyderabad to expand operations. “Both the deals are expected to be signed in the next few days and in both cases the companies are expanding their footprint in India,” the people cited earlier said. “These facilities will be up by 2021.”
Apple’s new Bengaluru office is expected to come up at Prestige Mink Square. The company is also looking to step up manufacturing in the country.
Last month, Foxconn started assembling Apple’s top-end iPhones at its Chennai plant.
Separately, Wells Fargo is in discussion for a built-tosuit office space in Hyderabad with DivyaSree developers. “Wells Fargo already occupies around 1.2 million sq ft in Hyderabad and is looking to further expand business,” said another person aware of the deal. An email query sent to Apple remained unanswered till as of press time. The communications head of Wells Fargo, too, did not respond to ET’s messages and phone calls. Recently, MNCs including Google, Walmart, Amazon and Microsoft have either taken or are in the process of leasing large office spaces across Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai for future growth.
In the first half of 2020, the southern property markets accounted for about 48% of the total office leasing in India compared with 51% in the same period a year ago.
As per Knight Frank’s latest report, Bengaluru contributed around 4.8 million sq ft of office space leasing in the country, while Hyderabad was at 2.2 million sq ft.