Is Indian e-comm about to hit inflection point?

Is Indian e-comm about to hit inflection point?

Here are few graphs and data to compare: followed by my inferences?

Pic 1: Internet users in US, China and India.

Pic 2: Internet users China vs India 

Pic 3: Inflection point of internet users

 Pic 4: Chinese e-commerce Market Data

Pic 5: Indian market data - retail vs online (%)

Pic 6: Amazon's revenue growth


And now here is a quote on china e-commerce from yesteryears. - year 2007

"Because few people in China have credit cards or trust the Internet for financial transactions, e-commerce is emerging slowly. But instant messaging and game-playing are major obsessions, now central to Chinese culture."

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/world/asia/05virtual.html

Here are my inferences:

1. India's internet user adoption is kind of following Chinese growth curve. China's internet users grew very fast starting 2006. India's growth is similar in 2014. US had a similar spurt in growth in 1997.

2. Interesting Point: There seems to be a lag in online retail growth vis-a-vis internet user growth. China internet user grew in 2006. Even in 2008, % online sales was at 1.2%.

3. Even China internet users, went thru similar cases of lack of trust, lack of credit card, etc in its early years (2004 - 2010).

4. As US internet grew early before 2000, I don't have much data. My assumption is, it would not be much different from the ones we see with China.

5. India is going thru a similar stage. We have just crossed the inflection point in internet users. (2014-2015). The inflection point of online retail is not too far away.

  • The numbers floating around the internet: Only 10 mn monthly transacting users of the 450 mn internet users or a country of 1.2bn people, while this is factually correct, the inference drawn from these are wrong.
  • It is too early to predict the failure of online retail. It is too early to assume that Indian e-commerce companies have burnt money for nothing.

We are about to hit the inflection point on online retail. The market leaders today, will be the ones who would benefit from this the most.

Interesting days ahead!

What are your thoughts?


Rahul Raj

Senior Director at IDfy | Fintech & Regtech Expert | Thought Leader in Digital KYC and Customer Onboarding

7 年

Seems interesting. Do you also see Wallets and Payment Banks being an important driving force for future online retailing in India?

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