Another market is booming, and the scale of e-commerce will reach 400 billion US dollars!

In the early years, e-commerce in Europe and the United States developed more maturely compared to other markets, attracting major well-known platforms to constantly compete for market share in this "hot land".

In recent years, emerging markets have emerged and gained popularity among a number of platforms and sellers, becoming their new choice for going global, such as the hot markets of Southeast Asia, Latin America, South Korea, Japan, etc. Many big sellers have achieved a surge in sales by relying on these popular markets.

In addition to the above-mentioned markets, the Indian e-commerce market introduced in this article has also shown explosive growth in recent years.

India's e-commerce scale will exceed 400 billion US dollars, sellers: new opportunities!

According to relevant statistics, as of April 2023, India's population has surpassed China, becoming the world's most populous country.

As the population base grows, more and more demands are emerging in the market. Coupled with the popularization of the Internet, changes in people's consumption patterns, and economic development in recent years, India, which has the largest consumer population, has become a dazzling "star" on the global stage.

According to the "Indian E-commerce Market Report for the First Half of 2024" released by Inc42, the Indian e-commerce market is developing at an alarming rate, and its current size has reached US$116 billion (about RMB 838.9 billion). Looking back at the data in 2023, the total transaction volume of its e-commerce market was only US$60 billion (about RMB 433.9 billion).

Relevant data also predicts that by 2026, the size of India's e-commerce market will increase to US$150 billion (about RMB 1,084.8 billion). From 2023 to 2027, its retail e-commerce development scale will soar at a compound annual growth rate of 19%, surpassing countries such as Brazil and Argentina to become the fastest growing market in the world.

It is worth mentioning that if this trend continues, by 2030, the Indian market size is expected to exceed US$400 billion (approximately RMB 2.886 trillion), ranking third in the global online sales industry.

Not only that, some institutions have predicted that India's e-commerce has entered a stage of rapid development. In ten years, its scale is likely to surpass that of the United States and become the world's second largest e-commerce market.

In addition to the rapid growth of the e-commerce market, the Internet penetration rate in India is also increasing. Data shows that by 2025, the local Internet will cover 52% of the population, and the number of active Internet users is expected to exceed 900 million. It can be said that with the guarantee of the Internet foundation, more consumers will turn to online shopping in the future.

Based on this, some industry insiders pointed out that the potential of India's e-commerce sector should not be underestimated. Judging from the current situation alone, this market may be a new blue ocean for platforms and sellers to achieve soaring performance in the future. Some people even call it a "new gold mine."

Under this trend, the Indian market has gradually become a "hot spot" in the eyes of cross-border people, attracting a large number of e-commerce players to compete for market share.

The prospects are bright, and various platforms are constantly competing for the Indian market

As an emerging e-commerce market that has grown rapidly in recent years, India's potential continues to explode, and e-commerce platforms including Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, etc. have also tried their best to try to get the biggest piece of the pie in this market. Of course, there are also platforms in this market that have achieved outstanding results.

Take Meesho, an Indian local e-commerce platform , as an example. Not long ago, Meesho announced its performance for fiscal year 2024. Data showed that its revenue increased by 33% year-on-year, making it the first social e-commerce platform in India to achieve profitability within the year.

Specifically, Meesho's revenue for fiscal year 2024 was 76.15 billion rupees (about 6.5 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 33%. The adjusted loss was 530 million rupees (about 45.3 million yuan), and the loss rate dropped sharply by 97%. In addition, its operating cash flow in fiscal year 2023 was negative 23 billion rupees (about 19.6 billion yuan), and now it has turned positive, reaching 2.32 billion rupees (about 199 million yuan).

As soon as this data was released, it quickly set off a wave of enthusiasm in the Indian e-commerce market.

In response to the revenue growth, Meesho analyzed that the platform's achievements are inseparable from its precise market positioning and rich product variety, and also benefit from the increase in its annual transaction users.

Data shows that the number of Meesho independent annual transaction users (ATU) in fiscal year 2024 reached 145 million, accounting for about 10% of India's total population. Moreover, in the first half of this year, Meesho's total downloads have exceeded 200 million times, with an average daily download of 10 million times. During the platform's annual promotion "Meesho Mega Blockbuster Sale 2024" not long ago, Meesho provided users with about 30 product categories, a total of 120 million products, and received 1.45 billion user visits, attracting more than 200,000 sellers to participate, and the total number of orders also soared by more than 40% compared with last year.

Apart from Meesho, Amazon also had great success in its promotional activities in the fourth quarter.

It is reported that during the Great Indian Festival 2024 last month , the Amazon platform provided consumers with up to 30 million products, and the scale of the event was quite large.

During the promotion, Amazon's user visits in India reached 1.4 billion, setting a record high, and its new product launches and transaction success rates have also increased significantly. Data shows that compared with the Great Indian Festival in 2023, the number of sellers with sales of more than 100 million rupees (about 8.53 million yuan) during this promotion increased by 70%, and more than 4,500 sellers increased their sales by 10 times, and more than 7,000 sellers increased their sales by 5 times.

Meanwhile, e-commerce giant Flipkart also saw strong growth during the holiday shopping season.

According to statistics, during the event, the platform's visitor traffic in India reached 7.2 billion, and the number of independent visitors was close to 300 million, reaching 282 million. The sales of some sellers even soared by 50% year-on-year.

In addition, a few days ago, even the well-known American video platform YouTube publicly announced that it will cooperate with Indian e-commerce giants Flipkart and Myntra to officially launch the "Shopping Alliance Program."

Ajay Vidyasagar, regional director of YouTube Asia Pacific, said that the platform currently has more than 110,000 channels in India and 100,000 subscribers.

In general, whether it is the old giants Flipkart and Amazon, or Meesho, which has just emerged in recent years, they have achieved good results in the Indian market. Coupled with the recent strong entry of YouTube, it is not difficult to see that this e-commerce market is really hot. For platforms or sellers who want to bet on new markets, perhaps India can be regarded as the next new blue ocean market to achieve explosive sales.

However, it must be noted that although the Indian e-commerce market has unlimited potential, when major platforms or sellers choose to enter the market, they still need to fully understand market details, consumer preferences, etc. in advance and formulate product marketing strategies to avoid panic when encountering problems.