Demonetisation to give fillip to m-commerce in India

The Dollar Business Bureau

Demonetisation will be giving the much-needed push to the m-commerce industry with a report predicting a huge shift of retail commerce to mobiles in the near future.

According to CII Grant Thornton report on m-commerce, demonetisation is exactly what will benefit the already growing m-commerce ecosystem in India. m-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services through mobile phones.

The report underlined the rising smartphone usage coupled with banning of Rs. 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as making a strong case for the m-commerce industry to flourish. The growth of the former can be attributed to the availability of affordable smartphones and mobile data plans. This is being further consolidated with the entry of new service providers such as Reliance Jio leading to such a foreseeable shift.

Presently, the contribution of m-commerce to online sales in the country stands at 60% in the backdrop of 30 to 50% growth in online transactions in the tier II and III cities.

There are around 292 million smartphone users in India with smartphones contributing to more than 45% of all mobile phones shipped in the first quarter of 2016.

The country has seen a rise in the mobile internet user base going up to 371 million in 2016 and the same is expected to grow annually by 50 million till 2019. This will be augmented with the likelihood of online shoppers getting more than double by 2020.

"The current online shoppers are in the range of 80-100 million and expected to increase to 175-220 million by 2020," elaborated the report.