TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A research conducted by property consultant Savills Indonesia shows that e-commerce and tech companies are now occupying commercial office buildings. The tech companies include fintech companies and software development companies.

Savills Indonesia research and consulting department head Anton Sitorus said that most of the companies earlier used houses, house-shops (known as ruko) or small warehouses as their office. As they expand their businesses, coupled with capital injections from major investors, e-commerce companies begin to think about moving to commercial buildings.

Read: Indonesian E-Commerce Potentially Bigger than Korea, India

Anton predicts that Tokopedia, an anchor tenant in Ciputra World Jakarta II that rents 13,600 square meters floor area, will trigger the rise in demand for office spaces in the future. Savills research shows that the number of digital companies will increase by 6.5 times to 13,000 by 2020.

Assuming that a startup business hires 5 people, it would need an office with at least 15 square meter floor area. “There will be a demand for 1 million square meter of office spaces,” he said yesterday.

E-commerce business growth is evident from recent major investment. For example, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba injected US$1.1 billion (roughly $14 trillion) into Indonesian marketplace Tokopedia. “The economy is slowing but news from e-commerce is surprising,” he said.

BISNIS.COM