Look East: Self Storage in Asia

Asia is a populous region. Including India and China it contains about 3.7 billion people (55% of the world’s population), who are all potential users of self storage – yet there is no self storage industry in either country.

This is because demand for storage services of this sort seems to depend on a country having an income of at least $20,000 of GDP per head of population to allow a viable market, according to research carried out by Jon Perrins of Extra Space in Singapore.

Both countries are currently a long way off this: China’s GDP per head is just $6,600, while India’s is even lower, at $3,100.

200 to 250 storage facilities in Asia

Several wealthier Asian countries have developed significant retail storage markets, including Singapore with 16 facilities, Hong Kong with 143 (though these are generally small), and Japan with 73. South Korea has only one.

Size of storage room relates to house size
Interestingly the size of storage units in various countries seems to correspond with the size of people’s living space. So in Australia and America, where houses are often large, the average unit sizes are larger than in the UK, whereas in Asia, with typically smaller housing units, the self storage rooms that people demand are smaller too. Across all these regions the average size of a self storage unit seems to be about 5% (one twentieth) of the typical house size.

The existing operators who already have a presence in Asia are outlined below:

– Big Orange, which is run by Angus Miller and has two sites in Hong Kong and four in Singapore

– Storhub, which has four sites in Singapore and has recently been bought out by the Singapore Government

– Quraz, which is Japanese and operates a very upmarket model. Its sites are usually in high streets and it has carpeted storage rooms, temperature and humidity control and very pristine units. But customers pay for the privilege and storage charges can be as high as $8 per square foot per month. Over the last 7 years it has built up 33 sites in various Japanese cities.

– Store-friendly. This is more like the Storage King franchise model that operates in Australia, New Zealand and Britain. They have 65 sites in Hong Kong, often taking up whole floors in apartment blocks, and their management model means that they take about 20% of revenue as their fee.

– Extra Space. This business is being developed by Jonathan Perrins, who previously helped to build up Steel Storage in the UK fitting out storage facilities, but in 2003 he moved back to his native Australia. Extra Space has opened four sites in Singapore which are filling up very well and what has surprised Jonathan is the high demand for wine storage space as well as his bankers’ willingness to lend on these storage centre investments. His modus vivendi is to work with a local partner, and so far he says his returns on capital are well over 25%.

With Asian storage proving to be so profitable, the industry is bound to see continued expansion across the region.

2 Responses to “Look East: Self Storage in Asia”

1. Robert Akerblom says:

   September 25, 2010 at 12:44 pm

   Dear Anthony,

   Thanks for an informative post on the Self Storage situation in Asia.
   We are a new operator in Thailand, MY STORAGE – The Secure, Clean & Cost Effective Self Storage situated at Jungceylon Shopping Center, Patong, Phuket.

   Our facility opened on the 30th of Aug 2010 and our first set of customers have moved in, we have this far received extensive attention from local media incl newspapers, assorted media as guides and monthly publications, radio channels and TV.

   Its greenfield for sure and we are facing an extensive educational role with the locals as a new service provider. The Expat community is taking on to it quickly and its just a matter of getting the word out there.

   Our future plans include the opening of additional facilities under the MY STORAGE brand in the Kingdom of Thailand apart from promoting Self Storage in the region and act as a Turn Key provider for interested parties.

   Will keep you posted on news and happenings in the little world of Thai Self Storage.

2. Samuel Pun says:

   June 6, 2014 at 10:02 am

   We are Hongkong Storage and we are one of the first self storage operator in Asia (established 1997)

   In the last few years there are a big bloom for the self storage industry in Asia!!