New Delhi, Dec 13 (IANS): The total stock of co-working spaces across seven major cities in India stood at 15 million square feet as of September 2018, higher by 50 per cent from the total space available in 2017, a CBRE report said on Thursday.

The report also noted that India was among the largest markets for co-working spaces in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

"The overall stock of flexible space market in India (including all seven Indian cities) increased by about 50 per cent, from almost 10 million square feet in 2017 to about 15 million square feet by Q3 2018, making it among the biggest markets in the APAC region," the CBRE report said.

Ram Chandnani, Managing Director, Advisory and Transaction Services India, CBRE, said: "As employees are keen on the percolation of flexibility to all aspects of work, it is evident that flexible spaces are here to stay. The optimism of flexible space operators is being fuelled by the rising interest of established corporates in this segment.

"We anticipate that this trend would continue, given the willingness of operators to customise offerings and prioritise member loyalties," he added.

CBRE is a global commercial real estate services and investment firm which conducted the survey in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune.

Further, it observed that Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR were the largest markets for co-working spaces in India as of September, with a combined share of almost 55 per cent in overall leasing by flexible space operators.

The report also showed that Shanghai and Delhi-NCR were the only two cities in the APAC region where flexible space share is more than 3 per cent of the overall office stock.