For DATA 150, Human Development/Data Science
This project is maintained by CarloMehegan
The sun is setting as the call center workers at Vodafone New Zealand put on their coats and start to leave for the day. As they clock out, staff in India put on their headsets and begin to field calls from Vodafone customers. New Zealand Standard Time is six and a half hours ahead of Indian Standard Time, making India a suitable place to keep the Vodafone call centers running 24/7 (Damodaran). Many other Western companies, such as Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Amazon, and Telefonica have chosen to outsource call centers to India.
But what makes so many companies choose India? It seems as though India has been a major center of internet literacy and tech support for many decades. However, the internet has only existed in India for 25 years, and it wasn’t until the turn of the century that the internet started to become accessible to consumers (Gapminder). Over the last two decades, the number of internet users in India has skyrocketed, and today, India has more internet users than the United States does (Gapminder). India is estimated to hit one billion users by 2030 (World Economic Forum). The effects of this unprecedented technological growth in India are seen in all aspects of Indian life, from its impact on the economy and careers in India to the way it has changed everyday life for many. This literature review aims to look at the current research on how the internet has affected India, and find researched trends in India that may have been directly affected by India’s “internet revolution.” This review will also look at how India reached its current point of digitization and its effects on the past, present, and future.
There are multiple studies that look at different aspects of Indian life and India’s economy and compare them to measures of internet growth. For example, in the report India’s internet growth fuels net-based businesses, Pasricha looks at how Zomato, an Indian online service that provides information about local restaurants, has become popular globally (Pasricha). The founders of Zomato were able to utilize the web in a way that was helpful for consumers and profitable at the same time. The internet has provided a place for commerce, and there are many online services based in India that make a profit thanks to a global online audience.
The internet has affected the economy in India in other ways as well. With the rise of online stock trading, traders are able to trade faster and more frequently on India’s National Stock Market than they could in the days of telephone stock trading (Srivastava). Tools like online stock trading became widely used quickly after their introduction, exemplifying how quickly India has been able to adapt to the internet’s new tools.
Another example of these tools is online banking. In India, it is hard to find banks and financial institutions in rural areas, making it difficult for Indian people living in these areas to use bank accounts and manage their money. However, with the rise of online banking, proximity to a physical bank no longer mattered. Digital transactions quickly became commonplace for Indians in urban and rural areas, making it easier for people to interact with businesses, especially online ones. The accessibility to banks also made it easier for people to borrow credit and take out loans. All of these effects of online banking have been shown to correlate with the growth of India’s financial sector (Jayaraman et al).
All over India, information and services are being “digitized,” making them compatible with the web and modern computing, and therefore making them easier to access and improve. This digitization has been rapid, and can be seen in many aspects of life. For example, radio broadcasting, India’s “primary medium for entertainment, information, and education among masses” (Singla), has been transitioned to use more modern, digital formats, allowing for higher definition broadcasts that reach a wider audience. Digitization can also be seen in cable TV. Improving cable TV in this way “benefits all stakeholders including the distributor, broadcasters, cable operators, MSOs, and even viewers” (Singh). Like radio broadcasting, this cable digitization means higher definition programs as well as a more transparent backend, as statistics can be easily recorded by television services (Singh).
Aside from existing technology, digitization can also be seen in unexpected places like ration cards. Ration cards are used by Indian households to purchase food grain and are so prevalent that they also serve as an ID, similar to driver’s licenses in the United States. By using digital systems to keep track of the use of ration cards, the government can collect geospatial data used to improve efficiency in the storage and distribution of food grain (Albawaba). One final example: addresses. India does not have a reliable addressing system, and only ~5% of streets actually have names (Reddy). This has led to companies making their own in-house addressing tools in order to get deliveries to where they need to be. Some companies are even using machine learning to predict where an address is (Reddy). All of this is costing the Indian government and Indian businesses a large sum of money, and is eating into profits. This problem still exists in 2021, and finding a way to standardize addresses is a problem that India is currently trying to solve. The solution will likely involve the use of existing databases to map out regions of India and assign addresses to roads and houses (Reddy).
As seen in the examples above, the internet and modern computing are being utilized by India in order to improve services and solve infrastructure problems. This rush to digitize India has happened relatively quickly, and maybe even quicker than it had happened in countries that had internet access before India did, like the United States. So, what is pushing and funding these improvements?
There are multiple forces that want India to digitize. The biggest is India’s own government. The improvements to radio broadcasting seen above were influenced by the passing of bills as far back as 2003, pushing for digital addressable systems in order to curtail the prevalent price hikes in cable TV (Singla). This shows how the government has seen digitization as a way to monitor certain parties and prevent fraud or predatory practices. This idea can also be seen in the digitization of ration cards, as the collection of data allows the government to fight against fraud in the ration system. The government’s involvement, through legislation and influence, is a large part of what led to India’s rapid digitization. In an interview, industry analyst Swapnadeep Nayak said, “[digitization] can only be realized through proper implementation of strategies backed by the government and technology developers” (Estopace).
The quote from Nayak leads us to the other major force that has influenced India’s technological growth: technology companies. There are many companies, particularly international ones, that have sponsored projects in India related to internet expansion and digitization. For example, Cisco, an American networking hardware company, has invested a large amount of time and money into India’s growth. As of 2018, Cisco had invested in over 25 startups in India (CT Bureau). And in 2018, they signed two agreements with the National Institution for Transforming India as part of their Country Digital Acceleration program (CT Bureau). The Country Digital Acceleration program is where Cisco works with countries to “accelerate existing government goals for driving economic growth through high-tech innovation” (CT Bureau). This high-tech innovation comes in many facets. Cisco is using its money to fund projects that lead to innovation. They are also implementing their tools into Indian workplaces. For example, Cisco is implementing their Webex platforms into India’s one hundred Atal Incubation Centers. This is meant to enhance collaboration, as these centers are placed all over the country, as well as improve information exchange (CT Bureau).
Another example of a corporation working with India is Google and their “Google for India Digitization Fund.” This fund will invest ten billion USD into “a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure and ecosystem investments” (Pankaj). Google also wants to use their own technology, such as their artificial intelligence, for improvement in health, education, and poverty (Pankai).
These are just two examples of companies investing money in Indian development. There are many others, such as General Electric, Apple, and Microsoft. So the real question is, what is motivating these companies to help digitize India? The answer is that they are investing in India, like a farmer watering its crops, and hoping that their investments will bear fruit. That is why Cisco and Google not only gave money to India, but gave them their software as well, in hopes that the software will become an integral part of successful Indian businesses.
A large part of what gives India so much potential‒and makes the country so attractive to corporations looking for profit‒is its growing market of online consumers. In 2015, there were 890 million mobile subscriptions, with 192 million of those being for smartphones (Patel). The average Indian smartphone user spent 169 minutes per day on their phone (Patel). Among these smartphone users, 39% noted games as part of their regular app usage, 29% social networking, and 11% used shopping apps regularly (Patel). This shows that in 2015, there was already a relatively large market for online consumption, and these figures are only for smartphones. With the growth that we have seen in internet usage in India since 2015, we can assume that the number of smartphone subscriptions has also increased. As this market grows, corporations are trying to get their foot in the door by tailoring to India’s consumers, and part of that is helping the country to digitize and increase internet access within its borders.
The rapid expanse of internet access and digitization is more complex than it seems on the surface. With outside parties pushing for development in order to reap profit, the future of India as a consumer base of digital content is likely to have an impact on the media and services that companies around the world produce. Until that point, digitization will continue to improve India’s internal mechanisms and bring wealth to the country as it reaches‒and surpasses‒the capabilities of other technologically advanced countries.
This literature review compiled information on India’s expansion of internet access, how internet access and digitization affected the country, how digitization has grown so quickly, and how different parties are rooting for India’s continued advancement. However, there are gaps in the research on this topic. There is not a large amount of quantitative/geospatial data to support and predict India’s growth. Increased data on internet usage, especially in different regions and states of India, would positively contribute to the study of this topic and allow for research into how different parts of India are affected by internet expansion. It would also be interesting to look at how India’s internet expansion has affected other countries, especially looking at how companies that market online cater to a growing Indian consumer base. A central research question to be investigated could be, “will India’s internet expansion affect global online media consumption?”