Covid-19 boosted e-commerce, to grow to $200 billion by 2026: DIPP Secy Mohapatra

The Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a shot in the arm of the already growing e-commerce business in india although it has disrupted other industry sectors, Guruprasad Mohapatra, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Government of India, has said.

“We have faced a consistent growth in the e-commerce globally, in 2008 we were equivalent to 30% ot the global GDP. In India, the e-commerce market stands at the value of around $30 billion,” Mohapatra said, speaking at The Economic Times E-Comm Summit. He also noted that in his 34 years of service he has never seen a disease that caused so much disruption and has affected the country’s GDP, exports, economy and trade at a global level.

According to a report from market research and data analytics firm GlobalData, the pandemic has forced revision of the Indian e-commerce segment, pushing it to ₹7 trillion by 2023. A Salesforce global report also showed that retailers had experienced a 16% spike in digital traffic and unique digital shoppers’ count had increased from 12% to 40%.

Experts have also said that online sales could start accounting for over 10% of Indian retail sales in the next 12-18-month period, from 5% currently. According to data from WARC, Indian consumers are placed second in terms of buying products online that they would normally buy in store before the pandemic just behind Vietnam and followed by China.

The DIPP Secretary also expects e-commerce to pick up in the country especially on the back of internet penetration increasing on a daily basis via smartphones. “…around 850 million users in India will have access to internet by 2022, and the ecommerce market in India is expected to stand around $100 billion dollars by 2022 and $200 billion in 2026,” Mohapatra said.

Statistics from payments also hint towards this growth. A total of 1.23 billion transactions worth Rs 2.41 lakh crore on the United Payment Interface (UPI) was recorded by the National Payments Corp of India (NPCI) until June 28 – the most value recorded by the channel in a month, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data shows. A Capgemini Research institute report also backs RBI’s data trend and predicts that 74% of consumers in India will prefer carrying out payments through the digital medium in the next six to nine months.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ET Edge Insights, its management, or its members

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