India’s Internet economy set to hit $250bn by 2020

Driven by e-commerce and financial services, India’s Internet economy is expected to double from $125bn to $250bn – growing from the current 5% to 7.5% of the country’s GDP, a joint report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE) said yesterday.With over 391mn users, India is already the second highest country in terms of mobile Internet users. According to the report titled ‘The $250bn Digital Volcano: Dormant No More’, the users are expected to grow rapidly to 650mn mobile Internet users by 2020.  At the same time, data consumption by 2020 could potentially increase 10 to 14 times. “Firstly, by 2020, 4G enabled devices are expected to grow six times to 550mn devices, constituting 70% devices in use. Secondly, reliable high speed data is becoming both ubiquitous as well as mass affordable,” said Nimisha Jain, a BCG partner and co-author of the report.High-speed mobile Internet adoption is set to reach 550mn users by 2020, almost 85% of the total mobile Internet users, the findings showed.Average data consumption is projected to reach 7-10GB per user per month by 2020. “Innovation is what leads to sustainability and sustainable growth in the current entrepreneurship ecosystem will enable India to chart its own success story,” added Geetika Dayal, executive director, TiE Delhi-NCR.