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Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

Its important to distinguish between internet users and internet consumers. Only India 1 (115 million) have the money to really spend, they are consumers. India 2(approx 450 mio and are those who in large parts work for india 1) have older smartphones or feature phones and only some of them have money to spent.

A lot of bad vc investments didnt make that distinction and got hurt.

None the less lots of opportunities there for thos who can find products or services india 2 can afford.

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Interestingly, India1 almost exclusively speaks English, and essentially 'Anglo-Saxon' in culture. It's unsurprising that business models targeting India1 (or indeed any model, be it 'development', 'education') almost never scale for the rest of India.

It's rather sad that after 70+ years of 'independence', the country can't seem to shake off its servile colonial mindset. The 'nationalists' in power are no better in this regard - indications are that they are infact worse.

The caste system existed long before India was a colony

Servile? It's a genuine aspiration for them. India has a lot of corruption and replacement. Living in a beautiful stable place where you can have wealth and spend wealth without worry is a valuable goal.

So, being rich and educated is bad because apparently you think they're acting like slaves, but being traditionalist is also bad?

Hi,

I am curious to know if this distinction exists in literature. I, for one, am not familiar with this distinction. There are different market segments to which people belong as in any other country and their proportion may vary starkly compared to well-developed countries for example. But the distinction you are making is very new to me.

Some about it here. I am looking for another repport i read a while back.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital...

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functio...

Hi,

Thank you for these pointers. I read through the article and I couldn't find the distinction that you made. Maybe I missed it. Could you please help me see where it appears ?

Hey,

I am looking for the article that speaks about it.

I first learned about it in this podcast

https://technode.com/2019/01/28/71-the-chinese-takeover-of-t...

But there is a more in depth article I am trying to find.

A few interesting things about India 1 and 2

India 1

150-180 Million

Internet Consumers

Speaks English

$1 Trillion Market

Unlimited Data

Expensive Smartphones

Wi-fi at home & office

24/7 connectivity

Earning an average of Rs 30,000 a month.

India 2

400 Million

Internet Users

Speaks local languages

Serves India 1

Send money home.

Care about education of their children.

Earning an average of Rs 7,000 a month.

Second hand smartphones/feature phones

Buy data pack

Is there a formalization of the Two Indias concept in the economic literature or market reports?

I assume “India 3” would be the other 500+ million?

I was wondering the same. As the numbers didn't add upto the population.

Yup India 3 is the rest.

Is the market also segmented by language community?

Actually it's not that bad compared to some of the other countries. While we do have too many regional languages and dialects across states, people are usually bilingual.

115million approximately speak English sufficiently (India 1) India 2 is more a mix of some speaking a little English but mostly some regional language. There are 3-4ish big ones.

India 3 (the remaining) is almost purely regional languages (+20)

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