Jan 22, 2018 (LBO) – Indian economy is set to double to USD 5 trillion in the next 7-8 years as booming consumption of digital services would support addition of about USD 2.5 trillion to the country’s wealth, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said today.
“It took 70 years for India to become USD 2.5 trillion economy, and now the same amount of growth will take just next 7 years,” Sharma said while addressing Internet and Mobile Association of India’s (IAMAI) 12th (rpt) 12th India Digital Summit.
Sharma added that the time was ripe for entrepreneurs to create products in India for the local market.
“This is the time for Indian entrepreneurs to build something for India, from India, something that is a world- class model,” he said.
Sharma, whose company is backed by global investment giants like Alibaba and SoftBank, said spending capacity of consumers in tier II cities and beyond is often “underestimated”.
Lauding the accomplishments of Flipkart founders Sachin and Binny Bansal, he said the duo had “changed the country’s ecosystem”.
Sharma reminisced his struggle in early days while building Paytm, and said the company has now grown to 255 million transactions last month and will achieve USD 14 billion gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate at the end of the fiscal.