The Indian unit of shared workspace provider WeWork said all its buildings have become profitable in the first six months of operations though it posted net loss of ₹76 crore at the company level in FY18.
The New York-headquartered collaborative workspace firm’s Indian arm notched revenues of ₹58.2 crore, as per financials sourced from Registrar of Companies. With 8,800 desks until March last year, a back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that each desk earned revenues of about ₹66,000 but lost ₹88,000 per desk on an average.
“All buildings are profitable and cash flow positive within six months, and buildings have hit over 90% occupancy within six months of opening,” said Karan Virwani, chief WeWork executive officer, WeWork India. “We are focused on growth for the next few years and will continue to invest in growing our member base and further increase our presence in the country.”
WeWork entered India in late 2016 through a joint venture with Bengaluru-based real estate developer Embassy Group. It started operations in July 2017 with the first coworking office space in Bengaluru.
In 2017-18, the company completed six buildings across Mumbai, Gurgaon and Bengaluru. By the end of current fiscal, it will have a portfolio of 3,700 desks across the three markets with plans to reach a desk count of 1.15 lakh by entering newer markets such as Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai by 2019-20, it said in the regulatory filings.
“We don’t believe we have scratched even the surface. We have 35,000 desks, so revenue has grown significantly in a very short period of time,” Virwani added.
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