There is an impressive rise in everyday commerce conducted via mobile devices in India. A market report released last year by Zinnov projected that India’s market for mobile commerce will grow to $19 billion by 2019. India is alredy one of the top five regions for the Google Play store, as more of its 1.2+ billion people look to search, interact, and shop on the go via their smartphones and other mobile devices reports VentureBeat.
Sharat Potharaju and Perry Nunes of Beaconstac, a beacon-based customer-engagement platform based in Karnataka, India, have tracked which mobile services seem to be winning with India’s newly plugged-in population, and they have built a map of the Indian mobile commerce landscape (see below).
The map includes any business that uses mobile devices to directly or indirectly enable the exchange of money for goods and services. It includes any company that touches at least one stage of the mobile customer journey — from discovery to payment to procurement of goods and services — though many companies touch more than one, or even all three.
Key Takeaways:
- Financial technology companies are building the foundation for the Indian mobile commerce ecosystem by enabling cashless, on-the-go financial transactions.
- “Aggregator” apps that compile anything from offline retail brands to restaurants to health service providers in one convenient app are outpacing apps for individual businesses.
- The ecosystem is moving toward “hyperlocal mobile” commerce, and so if companies want to tap into the country’s massive market opportunity, they will need to develop strategies that enhance the offline world with the use of mobile, and vice versa. In many other cases this will come in the form of aggregating offline vendors, offers and products that are available nearby.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
