What is the Indian Internet Economy Worth?


Bangalore: If internet economy were a national economy, then it would rank in the world's top five, behind only the U.S., China, Japan and India and ahead of Germany. The Indian Internet economy reached 3.2 trillion in 2010 (4.1 percent of GDP), revealed a new study by the Boston Consulting Group’s Connected World series. The internet economy is projected to further rise to Rs 10.8 trillion by 2016.

The report measures the impact of the Internet globally. The study, first of its kind, is to examine the Internet's economic impact across so much of the world's economy - 90 percent of global GDP - and highlights how this increases as mobile devices and social networks become more prevalent.

The study also found that by 2016 the total size of the G-20 Internet economy will be $4.2 trillion, equivalent to 5.3 percent of GDP. As a share of gross domestic product (GDP), only three countries have larger Internet economies: the United Kingdom, South Korea and China and the U.S. tied with Japan.

If the Internet were a sector, it would be the eighth largest in India – larger than mining and utilities. It is driven especially by exports of IT services, where net exports make up 59 percent of the Indian Internet economy, while consumption is only 20 percent.