It is called "India Trends 2018" and lists out the top ten trends that will have a bearing on the internet industry in India - not only e-commerce but any business that has some internet angle to it activity. Calling it as "not a usual kind of report but one that is very participative and collaborative where in four entities - KPMG , Nasscom, Kalaari Capital and Yourstory, each representing a different element of the industry, leveraging their resources," Sreedhar Prasad, Partner and Head , Consumer Markets and Internet Business, KPMG in India, says: "We in all interviewed over 1000 different kinds of CEOs and the output is the top 10 trends that we put together." The report was released on May 17, Thursday in Bengaluru.
The trends, each explained in two pages along with challenges and opportunities, are as follows:
1. Mobile is the first medium for consumption of all kinds of media and internet. Be it gaming, digital content, news or videos, there will be a spike in business because of mobile adoption.
2. The second trend is about the importance of Indian language users on digital platforms. The reports says: "With the growing base of Indian language users, particularly in the tier-II, tier-III cities and rural areas as well as the rising smartphone and internet penetration, it has become essential for organisations to focus on building an end-to-end digital ecosystem that is both relevant and valuable to Indian language speakers. Currently, there are an estimated 521 million Hindi language speakers and about 500 million Indian language speakers in India. In contrast, number of English speakers stand at just 125 million."
3. Social commerce that is content-based commerce, heavily dependent on and influenced by various kinds of content be it on social media, content-heavy websites or blogs. On this, the report says, "Social commerce is an extension of e-commerce involving online media that supports social interactions and user contributions. Globally, social commerce represents a well-established trend and it is estimated that in 2016, sales worth $50 billion were generated or triggered using social networks, an increase of $20 billion over 2015." Also, it says, "social commerce is gaining traction in India, as the nation's cultural diversity coupled with an increasingly techsavvy population is creating opportunities for marketers to establish community-based virtual platforms."
4. Then there are the three specific sub-sectors on the rise and these are: health tech, edu tech and agri tech.
5. It is about the importance of robotics . The report observes: "The convergence of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT), is paving way for a new tomorrow by displacing existing products and services. Advances in new technologies - from robots to new-age systems, equipped with rational thinking - are curtailing the limitations of human capabilities."
6. The other trend is 'assisted e-commerce'. This is companies which are offline and online like Aadhaar centres, small stores that enable people to do e-commerce. There is lot of investor interest in that space.
7. The next is new frontier technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics with more investments and far more sophistication in that space.
8. Digital payments becoming a channel as an all pervasive enabler in the eco system.
9. Indian brands that are online only.
10. The eco-system monetisation by current players like say a Flipkart or an Amazon, have set up an eco-system, which could be of logistics, cataloguing , packaging or imaging or a payment gateway. They could now start monetizing them.
So, what is the report setting out to achieve? Apparently a lot for various interested parties, as one can gather from KPMG's Prasad. It reinforces the beliefs of large players if they are investing in any of these trends,. If they are not, it will be an eye opener for them. For talent, when switching jobs, the report reveals which sectors will boom. And, finally it is meant for the investor community - the PE and VCs.