The use of mobile phones has skyrocketed in India in recent times. Statistics state that 70 % of Indians have a feature phone. With e-commerce and mobile usage picking up at a parallel pace, mobile commerce also called m-commerce has become extremely popular.
India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, according to the reviews published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Central Statistics Office(CSO). The Indian govt. has introduced various initiatives namely, Digital India, Make in India, Start-up India, Skill India, and Innovation Fund to support e-commerce growth in the country. It has also introduced Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM), for digital payments via smartphones.
Indian m-commerce market:
It is estimated that mobile e-commerce will be a boon to the e-commerce space. A recent report by online payment company PayPal shows that every 70 in 100 Indian consumers prefer buying via their mobiles.
About 51 percent of online sales volume is via mobile devices in India. India is racing ahead in the e-commerce sector as internationally only 43 percent of customers prefer using mobile phones for shopping.
The Indian e-commerce market was $38.5 billion dollars as of 2017 and it’s expected to be $200 billion by 2026. Mobile retail e-commerce sales in India were estimated to be valued at nearly 38 billion U.S. dollars by 2020. The growth in this industry is due to the internet and smartphone usage and most of its contribution can be given to Mukesh Ambani as the introduction of jio sim card and phones into the market for their low prices revolutionized the Industry.
Mobile e-commerce sales were about 34.5% of total e-commerce sales in 2017. It’s expected to be 54% by 2021. Amazon, Flipkart are the world’s largest mobile e-commerce websites and Nykaa, Myntra, Paytm, Snapdeal, India Mart, etc are some of the most used websites by Indian individuals.
Customers have the advantage of selecting their preferred goods and services based on the discounts available. The digital buyer penetration in India stood at about 48 percent in 2016. In 2018, the penetration stood at about 60 percent and was further estimated to be 70% by 2020. The South Asian Nations had the fastest growing retail market in 2019. the total number of people that use of digital buyers in India was estimated to be around 330 billion in 2020. Personalized advertisements combined with attractive discounts, quick and simple delivery/return services were the reason for the boom of this industry. The internet subscribers reached 687.62 million till September 2019.
Impact of M-Commerce on the Global Market
M-Commerce has also a huge impact on global e-commerce sales. Worldwide e-commerce sales were $3.5 trillion USD, with an increase of approximately 18% from the year before. Ecommerce is expected to be more than $6.5 billion by 2023.
The industry has been directly impacting the micro, small & medium enterprises (MSME) in India by providing means of financing, technology and training and has a favorable impact on other industries as well. The Indian e-commerce industry has been progressing in an upward curve and is expected to transcend the US and become the second largest e-commerce market in the world by 2034. Technological advancements have facilitated innovations like digital payments, hyper-local logistics, analytics-driven customer engagement, and digital advertisements will presumably support the expansion within the sector. The growth in the e-commerce sector will also encourage an increase in employment rate, increase in revenues from export, increase in tax collection by ex-chequers, and provide better products and services to consumers in the long-term. An Increase in smartphone usage is expected to rise to 84 percent so that it can reach 859 million by 2022.
