India is attracting international attention from U.S. and European companies eyeing the country’s growing domestic market and buying power for goods and services coming from abroad. Siemens, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Bosch all have manufacturing facilities in Pune.
India is expected to become the fifth-largest consumer market by 2030, according to KPMG India. Although India’s position as the world’s fastest-growing economy slipped this year, its most recent annual gross domestic product (GDP) rate, 6.1 percent, remains three times higher than most competitors. In fact, India is second only to China in GDP growth, which registered 6.9 percent GDP.
As India’s domestic economy grows, internet use is expected to expand 40 percent year over year, according to a report from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. The 2017 report, authored by analyst Mary Meeker, notes that India’s current internet user base is 355 million. With an estimated 2015 population of more than 1.3 billion people—at least 70 percent of whom are under age 35—there’s lots of room for growth in India’s consumer technology base.
10 Reasons to Meet in India
- Smartphone and internet use is growing, with a potential 1 billion future customers.
- Automotive engineering, manufacturing and international distribution are prospering.
- Pharmaceutical manufacturing is increasing, along with R&D and export trade.
- Agricultural management is very important, along with water resource and purification development.
- Information technology, including telecom hardware and customer support, have been surging.
- Software programming is rising, along with demand for coding development and mobile apps.
- Hardware manufacturing for video streaming and high-end gaming graphics have been thriving.
- Renewable energy—including solar-panel development, wind-turbine plants and alternative-energy sources, such as lithium-powered batteries—is gaining traction among decision-makers.
- Travel and tourism are up—as are hotel, restaurant, shopping and sightseeing businesses, and transportation for tourists and business travelers who use taxis, buses, trains and airlines.
- Railway transport is vital to India’s population of more than 1.3 billion, making high-speed rail technology a potentially enormous market for both domestic and foreign investors.
Further Reading:
Find Yourself (and Your Meeting) in India
