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Indian retail market to hit $1T by 2020

A new report says the Indian retail market is expected to almost double by 2020, to $1 trillion by 2020 from $600 billion in 2015, driven by income growth, urbanization and attitudinal shifts.

February 10, 2015

A new report says the Indian retail market is expected to almost double by 2020 — to $1 trillion by 2020 from $600 billion in 2015 — driven by income growth, urbanization and attitudinal shifts, according to livemint.com.

The Boston Consulting Group and Retailers Association of India report entitled "Retail 2020: Retrospect, Reinvent, Rewrite" says that, while the overall retail market will grow at 12 percent per year, modern trade will grow nearly twice as fast at 20 percent, and traditional trade at 10 percent.

The report also says that e-commerce is expected to quadruple in the same time to become a $60-$70 billion market, according to the article:

Additionally, digital is also shaping the way consumers buy. There are currently 35 million people buying online and this will increase to 100 million in the next two years, said Gaurav Kapur, head of industry for retail and automotive, Google India at the Retailers Association of India's Retail Leadership Summit 2015 in Mumbai while sharing that the online growth is being driven by the tier III and tier IV cities. Consumers are buying everything online; even big-ticket items like houses, cars and two wheelers, said Kapur.

The rapid growth of e-commerce has retailers thinking of their multichannel strategy. "E-commerce cannot be ignored," said Neville Noronha, chief executive officer, Avenue Supermarts Ltd., which runs the D'Mart retail chain, adding his company is evaluating its e-commerce strategy.

Even the Dubai-based Landmark Group which runs department store chain Lifestyle and Max in India is looking at leveraging different channels. "We want to invest in omnichannel," said Ramanathan Hariharan, chief executive officer, Landmark Group.