How Bengaluru is becoming the high-street shopping capital of India

Bengaluru not only occupies the top slot when it comes to high-street shopping destinations in India, the start-up capital also dominates the list with MG Road, Commercial Street, Brigade Road and Church Street making it to Knight Frank India’s annual top 10 retail streets in India.

While MG Road is on top, Somajiguda in Hyderabad, Linking Road in Mumbai and South Extension in Delhi occupy the next three spots, respectively, per the study—of 30 high streets across the top eight markets in India—conducted by the global real estate consultancy.

“High streets are the barometer of the city’s worth on an economic platform,” says Shishir Baijal, Chairman & MD of Knight Frank India. He adds that a good high street is located close to both residential and commercial hubs. Five other key performance indicators—public transport, parking, store visibility, average trading densities and spending quotient—also determine the rank on the list.

“Bengaluru’s high streets have a high concentration of food and beverage destinations across sub-formats, with several breweries and drinking holes co-existing with other retailer categories,” says Divya Agarwal, VP–Research at Knight Frank India. “Due to its demographic spread... the proportion of non-modern retail remains limited to one-third of Bengaluru’s total high street stock, spread across seven prominent high streets. With a two-thirds proportion in terms of the real estate footprint, Bengaluru is the top city amongst modern retail areas across India.”

Contrary to popular belief, the top high streets do not command the highest rents. For instance, Bengaluru’s four markets charge retailers much lower rent (see chart) than New Delhi’s Khan Market and Gurugram’s DLF Galleria—which are not even in the Top 10. New Delhi’s Khan Market (`1,000-1,500/sq. ft/month), Gurugram’s DLF Galleria (`800-1,200), and Mumbai’s Linking Road (`350-1,000) are the top three high streets in terms of rent.

“As cities in India modernise, we see many high streets reviving as facilities like access, parking, store visibility, etc. have improved. Our estimates say that the average per sq. m revenues of high streets will be significantly higher than those of malls in FY23-24,” adds Baijal. 

@SaysVidya