Rural India: $1 Trillion Consumer Opportunity

Econintersect:  The middle class in India will grow to 570 million in the next ten years, well above the total population of the United States where the middle class is disappearing.  According to the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, quoted in The Economic Times, the total population of India will be 1.32 billion by 2021 so the middle class will be about 43% of the population.  This proportion is not too different from the current situation in the U.S. where nearly 50% are at or just above poverty.  If the top 10% is designated upper class, that leaves about 40% in the middle class.

The difference is that the percentage in the Indian middle class is rising while that in the U.S. has been declining as more and more fall into poverty or near poverty.

The Economic Times quotes PricewaterhouseCoopers Executive Director, Shashank Tripathi in their report:

Companies in the retail and consumer goods, telecom, financial services, industrial products, and healthcare and pharmaceuticals space can benefit from this opportunity, he said.

Even though Asia’s third-largest economy will urbanise faster, a majority of the demand for this $ 1 trillion opportunity will come from the rural areas, Tripathi said, adding that aspirational people indulging in vocations beyond agriculture will contribute to the demand.

Source:  The Economic Times

Hat tip to Sanjeev Kulkarni.