With beautifully designed, fully furnished living spaces in the most desirable neighborhoods, Blueground currently operates close to 100 apartments in Singapore and Hong Kong
Blueground, the largest global operator of furnished rentals for 30+ day stays, today announced its global expansion to Asia, starting with leading financial centers Singapore and Hong Kong. Having soft launched its services in both markets in early 2022, Blueground today operates over 50 apartments in Singapore and 40 in Hong Kong, with further plans to double the figures by the end of 2023.
Blueground is reinventing the way people live with its world’s largest, curated network of beautifully designed and fully furnished rental homes in sought-after neighborhoods and cities around the globe, accessible for stays of a month, a year, or more. Headquartered in New York, US, the company now operates 12,000 move-in ready apartments across more than 30 cities globally.
Blueground works with homeowners and real estate partners, providing a complete leasing solution that offers no agent fees and guaranteed full rental income regardless of occupancy rate. To provide owners with a hassle-free experience, Blueground handles the interior design of apartments and converts them into high-quality, turnkey homes. The company also handles all apartment maintenance matters, from guest support, service and maintenance to professional cleaning. Blueground further provides owners tenants from a carefully vetted list comprising both business and leisure travelers and has a solid track record of working with Fortune 500 enterprises on corporate bookings.
For renters, the Proptech’s platform provides a fully digitized experience from viewing and booking available apartments within minutes, to managing the entire stay through the Blueground Guest App – making renting easy and flexible for people where they want, when they want, and on the terms they want.
“Blueground was built to offer a simple, flexible way for people to move freely between neighborhoods, cities and countries around the globe – while ensuring high quality service,” said Christos Misailidis, Head of APAC & Strategic Partnerships Officer at Blueground. “Blueground’s expansion into Asia is a significant milestone for us and part of our accelerated growth strategy. It also comes at an opportune time as both markets are home to a growing expatriate community and experiencing the rebound of corporate and leisure travel. The demand for flexible, long-term accommodation has never been more profound – and more so now that it’s becoming normalized for employees to work from anywhere in the world. We’re optimistic about the opportunities Asia will bring and look forward to forming lasting partnerships with local landlords.”
In order to accelerate the development of its network in Asia, on top of the company’s organic growth and acquisitions strategy, Blueground is also launching its partnership models ‘Blueground Franchise’ and ‘Managed by Blueground’ in the region, and offering potential partners exclusive development rights for new cities.
The company was born out of CEO and Co-Founder, Alex Chatzieleftheriou’s time as a business traveler who first-hand experienced the pain points of living out of hotels for work for months on end. Founded in 2013 with its first apartments in Athens, Greece, Blueground is today present in major cities and countries around the world, including the US, UK, Europe, Middle East and now Asia.
In 2022 alone, Blueground saw a record 33,500 guest stays and 93% global occupancy, more than doubling the number of guest stays year-over-year, further reaching over US$300 million in organic revenue for the year. Blueground aims to double its revenue in 2023 and expand its presence to a total of 50 cities, with 40,000 apartments by 2025.
“Blueground’s designer, move-in ready apartments are in some of the most sought-after neighborhoods in Singapore, including Downtown, River Valley, Newton and Novena, among others. Within the first few months of operations, our apartments here experienced high utilization – a clear sign that we’re meeting a gap in the local rental market. We plan to expand our operations into other attractive districts by the end of the year, to provide more high-quality apartments where guests can simply show up and start living,” shared Archana Ashar, General Manager, Blueground Singapore.
“The rental market in Hong Kong has vastly shifted in the recent few years, and Blueground’s entrance will prove to be a gamechanger. Through our network of fully-furnished rentals situated in prime locations across Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, we are well-placed to meet the rising demand for flexibility among expats and corporate travelers today – allowing them to live like a local while relocating for business, and all in a hassle-free manner,” said Jeanette Liu, General Manager of Blueground Hong Kong.
Blueground’s entrance to Singapore and Hong Kong comes at a time of strategic growth for the company. On top of its plans to expand into more cities and countries globally, Blueground recently announced the acquisition of US-based Travelers Haven, a leading provider of housing on-demand in the US – its second acquisition within a three-month timeframe. In November 2022, the PropTech acquired Brazilian Startup Tabas after leading a US$14 million investment in January 2021.