Chennai: Powered with Internet and smartphones, India witnessed major changes in its economy this decade. Stock markets roared and crashed, trade wars were battled, new techs were introduced and jobs were lost or created. New businesses were born, new innovations tweaked the way we live.
With 2019 coming to an end, News Today compiles a list of sectors that made a huge dent. They were chosen based on impact they made to our lives. From online shopping to food delivery, from watching web series to e-learning, the 2010s has been a decade to remember.
* E-commerce
With birth of e-comm biz like Amazon, Flipkart, or Snapdeal, Indians changed the way they shop. The 2010s saw birth, collapse and mergers of top e-comm players. In May 2014, Myntra.com was acquired by Flipkart. Later, in 2016, Flipkart bought PhonePe and Jabong. Eventually, world retail giant Walmart bought Flipkart for $16 billion.
According to a report published in Statista, e-commerce is expected to boom in Asia. Current active e-commerce penetration in India stands only 28 percent with lots of room for improvement. India’s retail e-commerce compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is projected to reach 23 percent from 2016 to 2021, the report said.
“Close to 329.1 million people are projected to buy goods and services online in India by 2020. This means that about 70.7 percent of internet users in India will have purchased products online by then,” it said. Retail e-commerce sales in India are forecast to grow tremendously with projections to jump over $45 billion in 2021, Statista added.
* Transport
Commuting earned a whole new meaning when transportation network companies tapped into our lives with their ride-sharing apps. Ola and Uber were game changers. Soon, stories emerged of how drivers earned well. However, questions were raised regarding its safety, pricing and drivers’ credibility.
Statista reported that revenue in the Ride Hailing segment amounts to $30.36 billion in 2019. The revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate of 15.5 per cent, resulting in a market volume of $54.09 billion by 2023. ‘User penetration is expected to hit 20.3 per cent by 2023,’ the report said.
* Entertainment
When movies and television content, directly reaches our phone via internet, then such content is called as Over-The-Top or OTT. 2010s gave birth to extraordinary web content with several production houses spending millions of dollars. With Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Netflix and others, Indians started consuming more digital content as subscription plans set a war among the platforms.
According to a report by global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), India’s video streaming industry will grow at a CAGR of 21.82 per cent to reach Rs 11,977 crore by 2023. OTT will record the highest growth rate among all segments and drive evolution over next four years, it said.
* Food
Gone are the days when we had to step out to eat good food. Online food delivery businesses like Swiggy or Uber Eats gave Indians the ease to eat meals of their favourite restaurants right at home. Statista says, revenue in the online food delivery segment amounts to $7.7 billion in 2019. ‘Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2019-2024) of 11.3 per cent, resulting in a market volume of $13.2 billion by 2024,’ it said.
Online food delivery also paved way for groceries delivery business. According to an article published in Knowledge Wharton, grocery retail in India is estimated to be over 60 per cent of the country’s total retail market. “Analysts peg it anywhere between $400 billion to $600 billion at present with the potential to cross $700 billion by 2022,” the article said. “Online grocery is still small, but analysts see it as having huge potential. It is estimated to be around $500 million to a little over $1 billion currently and expected to cross $3 billion to $5 billion or even much more over the next three to four years.”
* Education
Online education has given students the freedom to learn without stepping into a classroom. Byju’s, Unacademy, Upgrad has witnessed steady growth. According to a research conducted by KPMG and Google, the online education industry will clock $1.96 billion by 2021. “Paid user base will grow 6X from 1.6 million users in 2016 to 9.6 million users in 2021,” the research ‘Online Education in India: 2021’ found.