Financing and Industrial Expansion Reveal Growth Within Reach of Few

If financing shows that the conditions for growth differ across companies, the real estate market reveals the extent to which their expansion differs as well.

According to SiiLA, between the first quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, occupied industrial gross leasable area (GLA) across the main markets in northern, central and Bajío Mexico increased 4.4%, surpassing 100 million square meters. However, among the more than 5,000 companies occupying that space, 90.8% maintained exactly the same footprint, while only 5.8% increased it and 3.4% reduced it. In other words, the market grew, although nine out of 10 companies that remained in it neither expanded nor contracted their industrial footprint⁴.

The fact that most companies remained unchanged did not prevent the market from growing because the few that expanded did so by enough to more than offset the contractions. The data show that expanding companies added nearly four times as much space as those reducing their footprints released, while the balance between observable company appearances and disappearances was also positive. As a result, growth came primarily from the expansion of occupiers already present in the market rather than from the addition of new ones.

Expansion was also selective by activity. Five subindustries—Vehicles and Parts, Transportation and Logistics, Capital Goods, Electronics and Digital Fulfillment—accounted for nearly 64% of the net increase in space. In all five, more than 80% of the space added came from the expansion of existing occupiers and, in Digital Fulfillment, virtually all of it. Growth was therefore concentrated along two dimensions simultaneously: it reached a small share of companies and drew much of its momentum from specific industrial activities⁵.

Both financing performance and the industrial real estate market point to the same feature of the current business environment: growth exists, but the conditions needed to sustain it are not equally distributed among companies. The distinction is important because it suggests that broadening that expansion depends not only on having resources available, but also on economic conditions that justify their use. Financing availability alone is therefore insufficient to assess the potential for business expansion, as sales, profitability, and the economic environment carry greater weight in companies’ decisions.

The result is an industrial expansion with depth but little breadth, as the market continues to grow because a minority of companies are significantly expanding their operations, not because that capacity is widespread among its occupiers. Still, as long as those companies continue investing, the aggregate market can remain solid, and the next stage will depend on whether economic conditions allow that capacity for expansion to reach more companies or ultimately constrain those currently sustaining growth as well.

To learn more about the conditions shaping commercial real estate market performance, visit SiiLA Market Analytics or contact us at contacto@siila.com.mx.

***

¹ The percentages refer to the share of companies reporting the use of each financing source, not to each source’s share of the total amount financed; a company may report more than one source. Between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, the share of companies using supplier financing increased from 62.1% to 64.3%, while the share using commercial bank financing declined from 27.3% to 25.0%. The share using any source of financing increased from 72.9% to 73.8%.

² Between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, the share of companies using new bank credit declined from 13.3% to 13.1%; the share that did not apply fell from 82.2% to 79.2%; the share with an application pending approval increased from 2.6% to 3.9%; and the share that applied for credit but did not obtain approval rose from 1.0% to 3.8%. The categories represent shares of all companies surveyed. The comparison describes changes between the two periods and does not allow for tracking individual company transitions or establishing causality.

³ Among companies that did not use new bank credit, general economic conditions as a constraint increased from 54.6% in Q1 2025 to 60.7% in Q1 2026; sales and profitability rose from 49.6% to 51.7%; and interest rates declined from 52.7% to 48.5%. In the question asking companies to identify the most pressing problem affecting their economic environment, the share citing sales increased from 37.4% to 42.0%, while the share citing access to financing remained at around 1%. The percentages reflect survey responses and should be interpreted as perceptions reported by companies, not as direct measures of causality regarding their investment or expansion decisions.

⁴ The analysis compares occupied industrial space recorded by SiiLA in Q1 2025 and Q1 2026 across 12 markets. Expansion and contraction are measured only for companies with an observable presence in both periods: a company is classified as expanding when its total GLA increases, contracting when it decreases, and unchanged when it remains unchanged. Of the 5,044 continuing companies identified, 4,582 (90.8%) did not change their footprint, 290 (5.8%) increased it and 172 (3.4%) reduced it.

⁵ Expansions by companies present in both periods totaled approximately 4.34 million square meters of GLA, while contractions reduced GLA by 1.15 million square meters, for a positive balance of 3.19 million square meters. Observable appearances added 1.55 million square meters, while observable disappearances removed 519,396 square meters, for a positive balance of approximately 1.03 million square meters. Together, the two components explain the approximately 4.23 million-square-meter net increase across the analyzed universe. Of the 28 subindustries with positive net growth, 16 were driven primarily by expansions of existing companies and accounted for 78.1% of the positive net growth among subindustries that increased their footprint. Vehicles and Parts, Transportation and Logistics, Capital Goods, Electronics, and Digital Fulfillment accounted for 63.8% of total net growth. An observable appearance or disappearance indicates only that a company was not present in one of the two periods but was present in the other within the analyzed universe; it does not necessarily imply entry into or exit from the Mexican market.