HCM City (VNA) – Co-working space inVietnam is growing in terms of both suppliers and types of co-working spacestargeting specific renters, real estate service provider CBRE Vietnam said onMay 29.

As of April 2018, there were 19 co-workingspaces in Hanoi and 15 in Ho Chi Minh City, and they were run by 23 operators,including two foreign operators. The two cities are expected to respectivelymake up 56 percent and 44 percent of a total 45 co-working spaces by the end ofthis year.

The number of co-working spaces has increased by55 percent over the last five years in the country.

Duong Thuy Dung, Senior Director and head ofResearch and Consulting at CBRE Vietnam, said domestic co-working spaceproviders like Toong, UP, Circo and Dreamplex are expanding their marketshares. However, while the numbers of co-working spaces and operators aregrowing, small suppliers with only one space are also increasing rapidly.

The market share of these small operators isforecast to rise from 30 percent last year to 42 percent in 2018, and bigoperators will make up about 12 percent of the market.

Foreign operators like NakedHub from China andHive from Hong Kong (China) are also gaining a foothold in the local market.While Hive plans to open a new co-working space in HCM City in late 2018,NakedHub is expected to open two more venues in HCM City and Hanoi in thesecond quarter of this year.

CBRE Vietnam noted that co-working spaces are oftennot located in prime buildings or downtown areas as operators need to keeprental costs manageable. Instead, they are more usually found in underutilisedbuildings in decentralised locations.

Both Toong and UP, two Vietnamese operators,locate their co-working spaces in buildings of class B or lower.

In Hanoi and HCM City, co-working spaces tend toconcentrate in areas near the cities’ downtown. In Hanoi, some spaces haverecently been placed in Cau Giay district, an emerging office and shopping mallcentre. Meanwhile, these venues are scattered across districts near HCM City’scentral area such as Districts 2, 3, 4, Binh Thanh and Phu Nhuan.

Co-working space operators are switching theirfocus on particular clients, which will affect the location of their venues.

Toong is providing spaces for various groups ofrenters when each of its space has its own special design. Circo is openingco-working spaces in the locations from which their clients can easily move todowntown areas. Meanwhile, UP is focusing on attracting new start-ups.

Duong Thuy Dung cited results of a CBRE surveythat 91 percent of the co-working space users are millennials, who are under 35years old. This proportion is higher than the global average of 67 percent andreflects Vietnam’s young demographics.

About 54 percent of the users are founders oremployees of start-ups, and nearly 14 percent are freelancers or self-employed.More than 55 percent of the users work in the IT industry while the remainingare in such sectors as tourism, finance-economy, education, marketing andproperty.-VNA