Private equity investors have been attracted to the scalability potential of the region’s internet economy, expected to triple from its 2019 level to US$ 300 billion by 2025 on the back of secular trends such as democratization of the internet, transition to a digital economy and the globalization of innovation.
The Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst to these changes, by compressing three years of changes into one year, and in particular by fast tracking monetization as consumer behaviour evolves from simply “using the Internet for free” to “transacting and paying for products and services on the Internet”.
In India, where favorable demand side along with supply side dynamics have led to a growing maturity in the start-up ecosystem. The Reliance Jio led mobile revolution, which has brought about a 95% decline in data costs since 2013, has resulted in one of the world’s largest mobile user bases of 450 million consuming an average monthly of 11GB (2019). This large and growing user base has, in turn, provided the fertile substrate for the e-commerce growth that India has witnessed — having grown at a CAGR of 30%+ over the past three years, reaching a critical size US$ 30 billion in FY20.
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