As per Colliers latest reports, with 9 million sq ft of leasing in Q1 2025 at a 15% YoY growth, industrial & warehousing demand across the top eight cities remained robust. Delhi NCR and Chennai led the demand, cumulatively accounting for around 57% of the overall leasing in Q1 2025. The demand for Grade A industrial & warehousing space was particularly impressive in Delhi NCR; the city has already witnessed about half of the leasing activity of 2024 in the first quarter of 2025 alone. Interestingly, across the top eight cities, engineering sector drove demand this quarter, contributing to about 25% of the overall industrial & warehousing space uptake, followed by e-commerce with 21% share. Both these sectors have surpassed the demand from Third Party Logistics (3PL) players, the usual frontrunner. While Chennai and Bengaluru saw strong traction from occupiers in the engineering space, demand from e-commerce players remained significant in Delhi NCR and Mumbai.
At a micro market level, Bhiwandi in Mumbai led leasing activity in the first quarter with about 1.0 million sq ft of demand, followed by Luhari (0.9 mn sq ft) in Delhi NCR and NH-16 (0.7 mn sq ft) in Chennai. These three micro markets accounted for significant leasing share in their respective cities during the quarter.