Indian e-commerce growth in 2018

A marketing research report mentions that the E-commerce sales in India will grow from $14 billion in 2015 to $55 billion in 2018. India has seen the fastest growth in its retail e-commerce section out of all the Asia Pacific countries; it has grown 133.8% in 2014 and 129.5% in 2015.

E-commerce companies like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd will have more competition, with brick and mortar entities like Tata group and Aditya Birla Group announcing plans to enter the country’s growing e-commerce market. India’s largest online marketplace, Flipkart has raised $3.15 billion in funding while Snapdeal, India’s second largest firm has raised $1.54 billion. Amazon.com is planning to invest $2 billion in its Indian arm in the coming year.

Additionally, specialized e-commerce companies like Zivame and Limeroad have raised significant amount of money to capitalize on the opportunity. The rapid growth in the Asia Pacific market is driven by the rising middle class in India, China and Indonesia in addition to the increasing popularity of mobile devices which is driving more people online throughout the region. The Asia Pacific region’s global retail spending has reached $877.61 billion this year and will make up 52.5% of the worldwide spending of $1670.99 billion, which is a majority of the world market.

However, China makes up most of its spending with 2015 sales at $672 billion and forecast to grow to $1568.39 billion by 2018. The online retail accounts for 0.8% of all the retail sales in India, compared to a global average of 6.3%. The report says this will grow to 4.8% by 2019 when it is projected to be 12.8% globally. The rapid growth in Asia Pacific coupled with quick internet service and penetration of smart phones in the country is heating up the competitive landscape where large local players are vying for the market share by improving their mobile platforms and logistics, many are moving entirely to an app only service.

India has seen the fasted growth in retail e-commerce section out of all the Asia Pacific countries, the growth will stabilize to 23.9% in 2019 as compared to an Asia Pacific projected average growth of 23.5%.