With the digital and tech revolutionizing every aspect of one’s life, all across the globe, it is unimaginable to survive without our smartphones, apps, or the internet for that matter. Our mobiles and our internet data pack help us n number of times each day- they assist students with their studies, professionals with their work, and provide a great pastime as well. Hence, digital media are now mainstream in India and across the world.
As mentioned in 3One4 Capital’s new report- India- A Startups Nation, if we look at the two leading data companies of the country- Jio and Airtel, the per capita data consumption and voice usage in 2023 is 22 GB per month with 422.8 million subscribers of Jio; and for Airtel, the 2022 data consumption per subscriber was 20 GB per month with 366 million subscribers. Along with this, India also has the highest number of YouTube users in the world and 3 out of the top 10 most subscribed YouTube channels are Indian.
This digital expansion in the country has also spread to a number of various realms, one of which is gaming. Especially from the times of the pandemic, which brought along lockdowns and social distancing, sporting and gaming have gone largely digital as well, with the market size, as of the financial year 2020, being US$ 1.6 billion, and growth rate from FY 2020-24 being 30-35 percent. The funding for the same had been in 2020, US$ 400 million. Further, watching esports is also becoming one of the fan favourites.
Another sector where digitalisation is gaining a strong ground is education, with the market size being, as of financial year 2020, US$ 80 billion, and the growth rate for 2020-24 being 50-55 percent, along with the funding in 2020 being US$ 2.2 billion. The digital is also transforming the health sector in India. From e-pharmacy, telemedicine and scheduling, diagnostics and care, to health and fitness, market size of the various digital platforms as of 2020 is US$ 1.6 billion, the growth rate from 2020-24 being 30-40 percent, and the funding as of 2020 being US$ 410 million.
Furthermore, India has pioneered the use of Digital Public Goods (DPGs) as technology-enabled force multipliers for growth, and this is known as ‘India Stack’. World-class products are being built on India Stack, which is a set of open API-based public platforms. Impacts of India Stack are largescale, with Aadhar, e-KYC, e-Sign, and digital locker reimagining the user journey, as the turnaround time has reduced from 6 days to merely 1 hour, drop offs have reduced, branch capacity has been freed up to 10 percent, and no need of back offices.
A digital transformation has set in with Aadhar and e-KYC, as the transaction time has gone down from 4 hours to 2 minutes, the statement processing time has dropped from 1 hour to 1 minute, operational costs have gone down, capacity has been freed up for lead generation, and customer retention has improved.
Moreover, the customer onboarding time has dropped from being 1 day to 4 minutes, and with the digital expansion and the cashless, paperless, and presence-less service delivery, India will go from data poor to data rich in 5 years.
Along with this, India’s banking fundamentals are strong as well. There is a total of 1, 22, 102 bank branches of scheduled banks in India, and 2, 09, 507 ATMs of scheduled banks. Since 2014, the government of India has opened 485 million bank accounts, and the aggregate credit for the scheduled commercial banks in India is US$ 1.6 trillion. The total scheduled commercial bank deposits in India are US$ 2.1 trillion. And with digitalisation of banking in India, full stack digital banking services by neo-banks is the future.
Furthermore, if we look at the trends in digital payment transactions in India, the volume of digital payments has grown from 4.12 billion in February 2021 to 10.08 billion in February 2023. The share of NPCI payments, that is UPI and IMPS has grown from 70 percent in February 2021 to 85 percent in February 2023. With the monthly UPI transaction volume being 8.68 billion as of March 2023, and the monthly UPI transaction value being US$ 176.31 billion, India is witnessing a steady transition to a ‘no-cash future’, as the country is also a leader in real-time payments.
Therefore, it is being anticipated that the New Digital Public Goods (DGPs) will serve as India’s startup flywheel for this decade.
