With over 560 million internet users the country, India currently has the second-largest online market in the world, just behind China.
From being a country where everything was outsourced from different parts of the world, our country has raced itself to be at the epicenter of the digital revolution in the world.
The history of the internet in India started around 1986, with the launch of the Educational Research Network (ERNET).
We all remember the early days of BSNL connections right?
The dial-up connection which nearly took an eternity to just connect!
Well, we have come a long way since then, but the journey has been far from simple, and the rise of tech in India has coincided with the new millennium.
How Startup Age changed India?
The early 2000s brought a steady buzz in mobiles – Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola, Windows Mobile and Palm and finally the iPhone and Android smartphones.
The domination of mobile was accompanied by the rising ambitions of India’s middle class. Then began Facebook ‘scrapping’ with Orkut in the social media game and, most importantly, the birth of India 1 or Tier 1 markets.
India developed fast in startups. Within 2014, ‘startup’ found its mainstream moment. From just a handful of startup companies in tier 1cities, thousands of them emerged in the Indian ecosystem within a decade.
However, by 2015 despite the large base of internet users, only 17 percent of them could actually access the internet.
The number of startups in India grew from 29K in 2014 to touch 49K in 2018.
Indian’s Internet scenario at present
Thanks to the Digital India initiative, things started changing rapidly from 2014. The government’s ambitious startup India, Make in India and Digital India programs made much easier to use the internet. Indian startups have created around a value of about $130 Bn with overall funding skyrocketing to touch $53 Bn during 2015-2019 alone.
Also, in 2019, Indian apps surpassed their Chinese counterparts with over 41% of the top 200 application downloads last year.
Now, what about e-commerce?
The retail e-commerce sales in India were forecast to increase from just over six billion U.S. dollars in 2017 to approximately 25 billion U.S. dollars by 2024. Mobile shopping has gained rapidly over the past few years.
According to the reports, around 49% of Indian consumers stated to use mobile to purchase goods & services.
Why the internet in India become so popular?
There can be a million reasons, but one of the most primary is the advent of Jio.
With Jio, it opened a new world for India. Reliance Jio targeted everyone from middle-aged to the younger generation from Tier I and Tier-II cities. People had access to pretty much anything you could ever ask for. Eventually, communication led to organized societies where we could work together for the greater good.
The rise in social media platforms is another reason for this boom in internet usage in India. Not only Facebook, Instagram, Twitter but with newer apps like Tiktok, Helo, people found communication in their own language.
For centuries the model of communication was often one-to-many – one ruler/leader spoke the law of the land to those around him. Then came television and radio which increased the scope of communication between the audience and the communicator. But with social media, communication became a two-way road.
People are talking to celebrities through Twitter now. Could people imagine that even 10 years ago?
This fluidity in communication led to a rise in internet usage in the country.
Although, 2019 proved that Facebook is still the reigning queen when it comes to social media usage in the country. With around about 166 million Facebook users in the country, India has the largest Facebook user base in the world. Other popular networks include WhatsApp, Google+, and Skype.
2020 and the future
Over the next decade, India’s Internet penetration is likely to grow across all the sections of society.
India has a massive Tier 2 and Tier 3 base. So if it needs to expand its reach, inclusivity is inevitable.
But as the population migrates from Tier 3 to Tier 2 and Tier 2 to Tier 1, startups will find it challenging to balance their models for these mingling segments.
According to the Mckinsey report, by 2030, India is expected to grow from a largely lower-middle-income economy to an upper-middle-income with a per-capita income estimated to grow $2,000 currently to around $5,700 in the next ten years.
This means the rise in consumption of the internet will increase significantly.
By 2030, Indian cities are expected to massively rise in urban population, nearly 40% of the entire country which will see a rise in GDP from 63% to 75% all over.
However, given the rapid rise in global warming, life posses a great threat. Green mobility has been the current focus of many industries& is likely to realize its potential in the next decade.
As far the startups, with concepts of blockchain development and cryptocurrency, the number of startups in India is expected to cross 100K, creating more than 3.25 Mn jobs in the process.
Where do you stand in this revolutionary time in India?
Have you moved towards the digital ecosystem yet? How do you plan to take part in this change? Contact Skyram Technologies. We are a digital marketing firm catering to all your internet marketing needs!
Also for other blogs read here!
