Top Southern Cities Dominate GCC Office Leasing With 64 Share in Q1 2025: ANAROCK

Mumbai, May 20, 2025: Global Capability Centres (GCCs) have been ramping up their presence on the commercial real estate landscape in the last few years with government initiatives announced in the Union Budget further accelerating this trend. The top cities are witnessing escalating demand from both new GCC entrants and those expanding their existing operations.
 
Latest ANAROCK data shows the top southern cities— Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai—dominating GCC office space leasing in Q1 2025 with a 64 per cent overall share. Approximately 8.35 mn sq ft gross office space has been leased by GCCs in Q1 2025 across the top seven cities.

“GCCs in Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad collectively leased approximately 5.34 mn sq ft of gross office space in Q1 2025, followed by Delhi-NCR, which saw 1.95 mn sq ft gross office space leased to GCCs,” says Peush Jain, MD (Commercial leasing and Advisory), ANAROCK Group.

“Of the gross office space leasing of 19.47 mn sq ft recorded in the top seven cities in Q1, GCCs accounted for about 8.35 mn sq ft, a 43 per cent overall share. In Q1 2024, they had leased about 4.87 mn sq ft. In short, there has been a 72 per cent annual jump in their office space absorption.”
 
City-wise data indicates that Bengaluru leads in gross leasing by GCCs in Q1 2025 with a 40 per cent share, followed by Delhi-NCR with a 23 per cent share and Chennai with 1.22 15 per cent share.
 
“In retrospect, ANAROCK data of Indian office markets indicates that the top seven cities saw gross leasing of over 141.43 mn sq ft of office space in the last two years. Of this, GCCs alone leased about 52.88 mn sq ft, accounting for a share of over 37 percent share.

Sector-wise analysis

Of the GCC leasing of 8.35 mn sq ft. office space in the top seven cities in Q1 2025, IT/ITeS held the lion’s share with 35 per cent. BFSI came next with a 22 per cent share, followed by manufacturing and industrial with 13 per cent. E-commerce held a six per cent share and consultancy businesses had a share of 5 per cent.

The remaining 19 per cent were leased by miscellaneous sectors. Notably, though IT/ITeS continues to dominate overall GCC leasing, other sectors like BFSI and manufacturing and industrial are also gaining ground.
 
“Driven by India’s rising economic influence over the last two to three years, GCCs are deploying not just in the top seven cities but also in various Tier 2 and 3 cities, including Ahmedabad, Kochi and Coimbatore,” says Jain.

“This is due to a combination of factors, including a growing skilled workforce beyond the metros, cost competitiveness, supportive government policies and concerted infrastructure development in Tier 2 and 3 cities.”

Unlike in the pre-COVID period, when most of them were largely eyeing the IT/ITeS and BFSI sectors, GCCs’ focus is now spreading out into other sectors, including manufacturing and industrial. A significant share of Indian GCCs is headquartered in the US, followed by Europe and the Middle East.
 
“ANAROCK data shows that out of 28.23 mn sq ft office space leased by GCCs in 2024 in the top seven cities, 65 per cent were headquartered in the US, followed by 28 per cent in Europe and the Middle East and just 7 per cent in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region,” adds Jain.

⦁ There were over 1,700 GCCs operating across the top seven cities by 2024-end. Their cumulative market value is estimated at approximately $52 billion
⦁ These GCCs host anywhere between 1.70-1.80 million professionals
⦁ Given current momentum, the end of 2025 may see over 1,900 GCCs operating across the country with a market value of approximately $60-$70 billion, hosting around 1.9 million professionals
⦁ By 2030, the estimated number of GCCs is pegged at between 2,200-2,300, accounting for a market size of $100-$110 billion and hosting 2.4-2.8 million working professionals.