The CEOs of most tech companies may well be of Indian origin today, as are project managers, developers, and other techies. However, that’s not the only way India contributes to technology on a global level.
Like has been previously reported on exchange4media, whether it’s Meta AI’s chatbot or YouTube Shorts, India has become one of the first markets to see the release of products before they are rolled out in the rest of the world.
Given that these major tech players also control and or facilitate a majority of digital advertising around the world, one wonders why India, with its relatively modest digital ad industry (projected to reach USD 5.3 billion in 2024), enjoys such primacy, especially when compared to markets like the US, EU and even Australia, which are valued at anything from 5x to 40x India’s digital ad industry.
But then, there's a reason that Sundar Pichai said that if you make for India, you make for the world, points out Preetham Venkky, Chief Digital Officer, DDB Mudra group. “India has become a hotbed of testing, maybe THE test bed for big tech, because of the hyper-segmentation that the market offers. Products can be tested and fine-tuned across diverse geographies, languages, socioeconomic statuses, and even internet speeds. India offers a host of different markets within one market, and so companies can see what works where.”
It should be noted that these refer mostly to big-ticket products, while smaller APIs, from both Big Tech and smaller players, which are developed in different markets around the world, are usually tested locally before a wider release. But these are more app-specific, and not the headline-making products, which in fact, are making a beeline to our celestial shores first.
“India is becoming a test market for launching new digital products due to its large and diverse population, rapidly growing internet penetration, mobile-first user base, and tech-savvy youth,” opines Nilkhil Kumar, Chief Growth Officer at Mediasmart by Affle, saying that additionally, cost-effective testing, supportive government initiatives, a competitive startup ecosystem, and the ability to gather diverse feedback make it an ideal environment for piloting and refining digital innovations.
A question of perception
For Karthik Nagarajan, CEO – Hogarth India, it is actually heartening that we are actually discussing the topic of Big Tech rolling out products in India first, given that if you roll the calendar back to even the early 2010s, this was not the case.
“One is the fact that India as a market skipped two big technology eras, because we were late to it. Rural growth in connectivity was driven more by mobile and so as a country we entirely skipped the landline phase. Two, in the fintech space we never really had the credit card phase at scale. It was largely an upwardly urban phenomenon and as a country we skipped into UPI directly. Today someone uses a credit card only because of loyalty points,” he says, adding that these two ‘double promotions’ have made India a fantastic testing ground for tech. Hence products like YouTube Music and Google Pay and Meta AI are either made for India or India first.
When writing about Meta’ rollout of its AI chatbot earlier, we had speculated that another reason for the release of this particular product in India (and a few other fiscally modest markets) first could be the relatively lax digital and data privacy laws that exist at least currently here.
A senior digital ad veteran, who prefers to stay anonymous, said this was a potentially irresponsible statement and India’s burgeoning popularity as a tech testbed was more due to the huge population size. However, as we cannot leave well enough alone, we also sought a legal perspective.
“The legal aspects of data privacy undoubtedly influence the launch strategies of major technology companies in India. India’s vast and burgeoning user base is undeniably attractive. Nevertheless, it is crucial to acknowledge the evolving nature of the country’s data protection and privacy regulations. This evolving regulatory environment provides tech companies with a degree of flexibility not found in regions with more stringent data protection laws, such as the European Union’s GDPR,” says Pranav Bhaskar, Partner, SKV Law Offices, adding that the recently passed Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP) of 2023 ushers in a stricter framework for data collection, storage, and user rights.
And speaking of perceptions…
“There is also the fact that in case there are any mistakes or issues that crop up, the P00R backlash within India won't be as notable as it would be in the US or UK, which can have repercussions in the global market and on the company's perception. A backlash in India can be mostly contained domestically and worked out, rather than the ramifications of bad press in more affluent markets would entail,” says Venkky.
