Millennials lead internet spending

With millennials accounting for about 28 per cent of population in India and relatively richer than their working parents in the 45-50+ age group, adoption of new technologies in the country could be rapid, says Morgan Stanley.

“We believe millennials are more open to experimenting with new technologies,” said Morgan Stanley from its recent survey findings.

In 2015, the average per capita income of millennials was US$2,400, while those above 45 years earned about US$2,150.

“We believe this could propel Internet penetration and online adoption/engagement in India,” said Parag Gupta, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley India.

India’s digital payment market could grow exponentially, he added, citing recent Reserve Bank of India’s figures showing US$4 billion of digital wallet payments in 2015.

India’s e-wallet spending could range between US$23 billion and US$364 billion by 2020. These figures are based on case studies of markets in the United States where 1.3 per cent of the population adopt this mode and 20.7 per cent as is in China.

Gupta supports his case by pointing out to the increasing import of smart phones.

India imports 100 million smart phones a year, all of which are new links to the internet.

India is expected to have 790 million internet users by 2020, up from 400 million users in 2015.

Gupta sees this increases the number of online shoppers to about 320 million people in 2020 from the present 50 million. fii-news.com