In a study commissioned by the Broadband India Forum (BIF) and conducted by economic think-tank ICRIER it was revealed that internet traffic added $100 billion to India’s GDP in 2015-16 and mobile apps alone contributed $20 billion (Rs 1.4 lakh crore) to India’s GDP. Speaking at the launch of the report by Manoj Sinha, Minister for Communications, Government of India, Dr. Rajat Kathuria, Director, ICRIER said that a ten percent growth in internet traffic would add an estimated 3.3 per cent to India’s GDP going by the data from this report.
The report which states that the internet contributed 5.6 percent to India’s GDP in 2015-16 and by 2020 with growth coming from the ‘Jio Effect’ with the entrance of Reliance Jio into the mobile data sphere, Internet traffic will contribute an estimated 16 per cent of India’s Gross Domestic Product around Rs 36 lakh crores with mobile applications accounting for half of that contribution. Kathuria and ICRIER had previously done a report over a decade ago on how the explosion in mobile telephony had boosted India’s GDP and Kathuria has no doubt that data growth on mobile devices will have a massive impact on growth. As TV Ramachandran, President, BIF, stated, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
The report covered several apps including Netflix, MakeMyTrip and PayTM and monitored traffic, rather than subscribers, with data from Cisco studied how these apps created an impact on the economy. This looked at enhanced income opportunities as well as job creation via apps as well as better access to government services, lowering costs, popularising languages and education among others. The report goes on to make ten key recommendations to the government including the improvement of digital infrastructure and investing in the e-governance app ecosystem.