India To Leapfrog US As eCommerce Hub?

India may hurdle the United States as the world’s second-biggest eCommerce market over the next two decades, research from Worldpay estimates.

That shuffling of leading markets will come largely on the tailwinds of demographic shifts, such as India’s population skewing younger (as 70 percent of the population is under the age of 35) and also emerging more fully into the middle class. The online retail market in that country could grow nearly 30 percent to be worth as much as $63 billion by 2020, according to the research. By 2034, the market will be worth more than $2 trillion, the estimates from Worldpay show.

At the same time, as India sees wages growing and younger people gaining economic traction, internet usage will grow, too, to 730 million from 250 million at present. Mobile will be a dominant choice, as data plans remain cheap, said the firm. Cash on delivery as a payment method seems to be waning, as it now stands at 22 percent of online shopping transactions in India, and will slip to 9 percent in the next few years.