Empowering the hinterland

mCommerce players believe that rural deployment of mCommerce is more important than its deployment in urban areas because of more opportunities.

1. Users in the metros are already equipped with card-based payments and online payment system.

2. According to statistics, around 50% of new mobile subscriptions every month come from rural areas in India.

3. The rural market in India holds a huge potential for deployment of m-commerce services and the subscriber base is expected to grow at a CAGR of 85% in the following years.

4. In India alone, two-thirds of the population is unbanked and has no access to formal bank accounts or financial services. So there is a large rural m-commerce market. The mobile channel provides a rare opportunity for India to leapfrog years of poor infrastructure development and actually bring the benefits of technology, low cost/mass market goods and services, and financial systems to the rural poor and lower working class.

5. There are many consumers in tier-2, -3 and -4 cities who have a lot of disposable cash but have limited access to physical retail outlets. For them, m-commerce will be a huge value-add.