The last few years have been turbulent for the economic growth of India, to say the least. However, not every industry or sector suffered losses. In fact, some online industries gained a lot of business and experienced exponential growth during and after the pandemic.
In this article, we will look at five such sectors that ended up experiencing a surge during the last few years and have become stronger than they were ever before. Here are the five online industries that saw exponential growth in India!
1. Education Technology
With the majority of the country stuck at home during the pandemic and children being unable to attend school, a lot of their education took the online route. This proved very beneficial for ed-tech companies that were especially creating products designed to aid study-from-home or online learning. Ed-techs benefited from the lack of school education and were able to create a massive user base amongst parents who wish to look to the future and supplement their children’s traditional education with more forward thinking products.
2. Online Gaming
Turns out that people being stuck at home can mean all the difference for online gaming platforms. Both during and after the pandemic, Indian users remained indulged in online gaming, whether in the form of traditional eSports such as COD Mobile or in the form of real money gaming. In fact, international cricket betting sites really took off during the pandemic, even with the inconsistent IPL seasons and canceled sporting events. It is now estimated that about 40% of Indian internet users engage in one or the other forms of online gaming.
3. Online Deliveries
It was a pretty predictable thing but companies that offered online delivery services had much to gain from the last few years. From groceries to medicines, the Indian public was ordering everything online, especially with the “no-contact” delivery options keeping them safe. Even after restrictions were lifted, these delivery companies kept benefitting since most users now relied on their services to get their provisions or to get parcels delivered from one place to another.
4. Digital Payments.
The online sectors would be crippled without digital payments in India, which also happens to be one sector that saw overwhelming growth. From being an economy largely dependent on cash, India has transitioned to a very cashless approach, with more and more digital payment apps and e-wallets flooding the market. UPI has been perhaps the biggest achiever, with billions of transactions done on UPI in a year. Other apps to have gained a lion’s share of revenue in the Indian digital payment market were Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm.
5. Online Personal Finance
It’s not only online shopping or gaming that attracted Indians in these past few years. More and more Indians are becoming more aware about and interested in personal finance and are using some well-made apps to assist them. Companies like Zerodha and Groww have attracted lots of new users, who may be interested in investing in the stock market or are looking for investment opportunities in mutual funds or gold. Several credit card related apps have also come up, such as Cred, that allow users to enhance their credit card experience.