India today is one of the most technological savvy countries in the world now. It has about 300,000 IT graduates every year. The IT industry has experienced solid growth since the 90's and today is worth almost 19 billion US dollars. Bangalore is known as India's silicon valley, which is a technology hub that contributes 36% of India's total software industry. Over 200 multinational companies are in Bangalore: Sun Micro-systems, IBM, Texas Instruments, Cisco Systems, Motorola, Intel and Dell to name just a few.
Intel classifies India as one of the emerging markets and clearly one of the fastest growing markets. Most of the multinationals have set-up Indian development centers to take advantage of a high quality and a lower cost. As far as India is concerned, it is in the position to give absolute World Class quality of software and they do it all for half to one third of what the International price is and that is the reason why their software export industry in India has grown so rapidly.
There are over 1 billion people in India and the youth are also shaping the future in technology and about half the population are now under the age of 25. It is estimated they have about 5 billion US dollars to spend. It is a great opportunity for the culture in terms of new avenues of growth or newer product categories, whether it is in the product innovation or design and that is the power of the youth which is going to help promote the growth in India.
New India with over 1 billion people has a growing middle class of 300 million people, which will grow to 445 million people by the end of 2006. This group has been instru-mental in changing the face of consumerism. India is expected to be the world's 3rd largest market in the next 5 years due to growth of the middle class and their population is expected to go past China's by the year 2025.
India is a technology country, so they need technology products. The youth will adopt technology a lot faster than the older generation. The youth today will start out with an MP3 or mobile device, then graduate to a desk PC, then possibly a TV & then possibly household appliances. If they catch them young and they believe that the Samsung brand for instance is trendy, then they will stay with them for a long time to come.
India also has one of the fastest growing telecom systems in the world and has grown annually at 20% over the last 4 years. The country's telecoms network is the 5th largest in the world and ranks 2nd among the emerging markets after China. The country private sector is also one of the most lucrative for global mobile phone man-ufacturers and cell phone providers. Current estimates put its worth at more than 20 billion US dollars and it's expected to grow to 25 billion dollars by 2010. This growth in mobile is fueled by cheaper mobile services, which are now available and because of cheaper services are just exploding.
The leading players in the handset markets are Nokia and Samsung. Today mobile devices are getting used at all the levels, such as the middle and lower class and you'll find that they are getting used everywhere in India.