Lessons from frugal businesses minting money in India

For foreignIMF GDP VC investors, India is a puzzle. On the plus side, it is a potentially huge market, recently passing China as the world’s most populous. The predicts that India will be the fastest-growing of the world’s 20 biggest economies this year. By 2028 its is expected to be the third-largest, moving past Japan and Germany. The stockmarket is pricing in heady growth. Over the past five years Indian stocks have beaten those elsewhere in the world, including America’s.The minuses can seem equally formidable. Just 8% of Indian households own a car. Last year the number of individual investors in Indian public markets was a paltry 35m. The smartphone revolution unleashed 850m netizens, but most scroll free apps like WhatsApp (500m users) and YouTube (460m). Blume, a venture-capital () firm, estimates that only 45m Indians are responsible for over half of all online spending. Netflix, the video-streaming giant, which entered India in 2016 and charges Indians less than almost anyone else, has attracted just 6m subscribers.