The Indian Digital Revolution ! Fuelled by start-ups

I love travelling all around the globe, unfortunately that hasn’t happened for last few years due to pandemic. But after a long gap, recently I went to India, and this has been incredible few weeks of discovery!??

The Indian digital revolution, though a work in progress, is an astounding success. The startup scene is just amazing, led by many unicorns like Flipkart, Zomato, Redbus, Housing.com, Urban Company, Paytm, InMobi and many more. The single most enabler for this revolution is mobile phone penetration and cheaper data plan (led by Jio)??

Most Indians don’t own PCs or telephone landlines. And now they never will, as they leapfrog straight to the smartphone internet era.? Digital reach has been facilitated by the biometrically authenticated Aadhaar- a single identity card, widespread digital bank accounts, common usage of the Internet for online shopping, tele-health consultations, digital payments, music, movie streaming, OTT, mobile utility services, food delivery and many more. All aspect of daily life is now digitized, electricity, gas, and?other utilities all can be paid through mobile apps. And all types of tax and income tax are digitized and linked with bank accounts.?

I could pay using my mobile almost everywhere,? from small shop on the street to any large shopping complex and all types of transports including auto rickshaws (Tuk-tuk). In fact, paying by cash was an issue, no one had small changes to exchange. The digital currency seems to be the new currency and The Indian digital economy, at $200 million in 2017-18 is headed towards $1 trillion by 2025, with 900 million active Internet users (McKinsey).

In 2020, 25 percent of the adult female population owned a smartphone while 41 percent of adult men did.??Rural broadband penetration stands at 29 percent while the national average is at 51 percent (687 million people), as of March 2020. But this is changing rapidly. Rural Internet penetration is growing at a pace three times faster than in urban India.

Wireless telephony constitutes 98.3 percent. Tele density in India already stands at 86.6 percent. (Statista)?

Covid has played its part to expedite the matter, I guess. School closures forced teaching over Zoom and WhatsApp, and many people purchased smartphones to access it. India has the largest number of students globally at some 315 million.?

Digital illiteracy and unfamiliarity with digital platforms have driven many people to community services like cyber cafes in urban areas, computer, smartphones, have connected broadband, electricity back-up. They also have skilled and knowledgeable operators. There are simple EMI schemes to enable poor people to purchase inexpensive smartphones, and Mobile Libraries to borrow them for online sessions. There are ‘Digital Didis’ to teach women how to use it and reduce gender-based hesitancies.?

Growing-up ?in India, I would have never thought India could come so far, with a population of 1.4 billion and multiple religions, languages, customs, topography and have many layers of issues. But this digital revolution, led by a thriving startup community will leapfrog so many people to participate in the wider world.

Though Indians are very critical of everything, (me included), for the first time , I could see India could be the next big thing !? Today is India’s 75th independence day and it is time to celebrate the achievement and acknowledge the contribution done by the start-up community.