Consumer Markets

India is currently the twelfth largest consumer market in the world. According to a study by McKinsey Global Institute, India is likely to join the premier league of the world’s consumer market by 2025 improving its position to the fifth.

Aggregate consumption in India is expected to grow four-fold in real terms during the period, 2006-2025 to touch US$ 1.73 trillion from US$ 420.7 billion. Also, by then, the middle class will have grown almost 12 times, from 50 million in 2006 to 583 million in 2025. Over 23 million Indians—more than the population of Australia—will number among the country’s wealthiest citizens.

FMCG
India's fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector is the fourth largest sector in the economy. The total FMCG market is in excess of US$ 17.36 billion and is set to treble from US$ 11.6 billion in 2003 to US$ 33.4 billion in 2015. . The Indian FMCG industry grew by 22% in 2006. Of the total sales, food (43%) and personal care (22%) are the largest categories.

The fact that the per capita income has nearly doubled in a short span of four years to just under US$ 800 in 2006-07 (from around US$ 450 in 2002-03), has boosted the growth of FMCG companies.The top 10 FMCG companies clocked net sales and net profit growth of 19 per cent for the quarter ended March 2007, compared with the corresponding period for the previous year.

The prospect for further growth in this segment is robust as in many category of commodities the market penetration levels of the organised sector is still low. These commodities include instant coffee (6.6 per cent), deodorants (2.1 per cent), skin creams (22 per cent) and utensil cleaners (28 per cent).

Consumer Durables
A combination of changing lifestyles, higher disposable income, greater product awareness and affordable pricing has been instrumental in changing the pattern of consumer expenditure. The consumer durables industry, which includes white goods, televisions, VCD and DVD players, and audio systems, has been one of the segments to experience increased demand.

• The microwave oven industry (worth US$ 173.35 million) grew at a robust rate of 48.5%, with the solo category increasing 22%, grill model increasing 36% and convection model growing at 71% over the last year.
• The fully automatic washing machines market grew at the rate of 40% while the semi-automatic market rose by 19% in the first quarter of 2007.
• Refrigerators sales rose by 10.7% in value terms and 6.7% in volume terms to touch US$ 936.2 million and 3.75 million units respectively in 2006-07.
• Air conditioners sales grew by 50% in value terms to US$ 494.5 million and 51.6% in volume terms (1.05 million) in 2006-07.
• Frost-free refrigerators clocked an unprecedented growth of 50 per cent this summer compared with the previous year.

Consumer Electronics
The consumer electronics sector is estimated to grow at the rate of 11 per cent, achieving a production level of US$ 4.95 billion during 2006-07 compared with US$ 4.45 billion in 2005-06. The fast growing segments during the year were colour TVs, DVD players and home theatre systems.

• Colour TV (CTV) production has shot up to over 12 million units during the year 2006-07. The flat CTV segment now accounts for over 50 per cent of the total domestic TV production.
• Personal computer (PC) sales are expected to cross 6.5 million units during the year 2006-07. The India client PC market witnessed a 20 per cent year-on-year growth in unit shipments, with the total installed base of PCs in India crossing 22 million during 2006-07.
• Sales of TVs are growing by an estimated 13-15%.
• Sales of home theatres have been growing at the rate of 80 -90% a year.
• Mobile handset production is expected to grow to over 51 million units this year against 31 million in 2006 to record the highest growth in the Asia-Pacific region, technology research firm Gartner has predicted.

iSuppli, a electronics market research firm, predicts that the Indian audio/video consumer electronics industry will grow to US$ 6.59 billion by 2011, rising at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10% from US$ 4.5 billion in 2007.

Automobiles
The Indian auto industry, worth US$ 34 billion in 2006, has grown at a CAGR of 14% over the last five years with total domestic sales of vehicles reaching around 10.1 million vehicles in 2006-07. Presently, India is the second largest two-wheeler market in the world, the fourth largest commercial vehicle market, the 11th largest passenger car market in the world, and is expected to be the seventh largest by 2016.

Credit Cards
Currently, the number of credit and debit cards in circulation is close to 26 million and 60 million, respectively. The total transaction on the cards as a whole during the year is said to be close to US$ 30.93 billion.

India has become the largest market for VISA debit and pre-paid cards in Asia-Pacific with about 33.9 million card-holders in 2006, accounting for about 3% of the company's total customer-base. Even in terms of total transaction, India is among the top three destinations in the region, accounting for about 62 per cent of the total debit and prepaid card transactions.

E-commerce
Thanks to the broadband revolution, more Indians are spending ever more on the web. On last count, 10.8 million Indians, or 43% of the country’s total internet population, bought online. This is 76 per cent more than the number a year ago. The e-commerce market is estimated to grow at 150 per cent to touch US$ 1.36 billion in 2007-08 from US$ 544 million in 2006-07.While the top ten cities account for 45 per cent of the overall shoppers base, urban uptowns, emerging uptowns and other towns account for the rest.

Real Estate Mortgage
In 1995, just 2.6 million urban households in India could afford a mortgage. After eight years of rapid economic expansion, that number had rocketed to 20.5 million -- a CAGR of 29.4%.

In the last fiscal, 2006-07, many banks continued to show robust loan disbursements. The home loan disbursements of public sector banks grew by over 21%, with the total amount outstanding touching US$ 33.42 billion during 2006-07 as against US$ 27.62 billion in 2005-06. SBI had reported growth of around 18% in 2006-07.The ICICI bank's home loan portfolio on March 31, 2007, was around US$ 15.71 billion, constituting 30 per cent of its total advances.

Consumer Confidence
The Indian consumer remains the most upbeat globally. According to the AC Nielson Consumer Confidence and Opinion Survey, India tops both the 47-nation global survey and the 14-country Asia Pacific study for the fifth time in a row. Also the perception of Indians regarding their personal finances (90 per cent optimistic) and job prospects (94 per cent optimistic) is robust.

The Indian middle-class, which is the backbone of the India market story, comprises 56 million people in households earning US$ 4,400-21,800 a year. The upper middle and high-income urban households are estimated to grow to 38.2 million in 2007 from 14.6 million in 2000, according to the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER).

With the population of high net worth individuals crossing 1,00,000 this year, the prospect for luxury goods market is also bright and is estimated to touch US$ 452 million in coming years.