India has around 35 crore transacting users across various digital platforms, including e-commerce, shopping, travel and hospitality, and the number is set to hit 70 crore by 2030, a Redseer Strategy Consultants report said on Thursday.

     

According to the report, affordable smartphones and cheaper data costs have led to explosive growth in the number of internet users in India.

     

“India has around 350 million online transactors across e-commerce, shopping, travel and hospitality, and OTT. We estimate there are 40-45 million mature users. We expect online transactors to become 2 times larger by 2030, with mature users being the faster-growing cohort. We also estimate that these mature users would account for USD 400 billion in online spending by 2030,” Redseer Strategy Consultants, Engagement Manager, Mukesh Kumar said in the report.

     

According to the report, the majority of digital consumers come from tier 2 and beyond cities and gaming is emerging as one of the fastest-growing markets.

     

“An average Indian spends around 7.3 hours per day on their smartphone, one of the highest in the world. The time spent is across online messaging, social media, YouTube streaming, OTT content and short-form video. Cheaper data costs and affordable smartphones (starting at USD 60) have been the fundamental drivers of increasing online time. This sets the stage for high digital opportunities for consumer internet players,” the report said.

     

According to Redseer, with the increasing digital India push and explosive growth of UPI transactions, internet users are becoming comfortable paying online on digital platforms.

     

“As comfort with paying online increases and customers evolve in their journey, we expect this to drive growth in transacting users, where users will shift their offline wallet spending to online. Growth in UPI payments and the comfort of paying online have led to around 110 million paid online gamers in India, second only to e-commerce,” the report said.

     

Gaming is adding about 2 million paid users per month, the report said.

     

“Gaming has almost 450 million users in 2022, and the market will see a 33 per cent rise in paid gamers by 2026. These users come from across India and pay for real money games like Rummy, Poker or make in-app purchases on casual and core games,” Redseer said.