The last decade has seen a very sharp growth in the use of social media in India, with both the people at large and the government using it as a primary tool of communication. No wonder, India is today the largest market for major social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook. However, very surprisingly, the Indian companies, notably their bosses have not yet turned to the digital tools in a significant manner. A study conducted by the London-headquartered ECCO International says that Indian CEOs remain relatively inaccessible to consumers on social media as compared to their European and US counterparts. The study, which looked at the largest companies by market capitalisation in 21 countries, revealed that 58 pc of global CEOs are active on LinkedIn, compared to 20 pc in India. On Twitter, this figure is 17 pc worldwide and 10 pc for India. Uday Kotak, CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, is among the leading CEOs globally with nearly one million followers on Twitter.

Since the study covered CEOs of top 30 companies by market capitalisation in each country, several business leaders with large a Twitter following did not get covered. Some notable Indian business leaders with large Twitter following include Ratan Tata (7.65 million); Anand Mahindra, chairman, Mahindra Group (7.2 million); Vijay Mallya (5.96 million), and Nandan Nilekani, Infosys (2.52 million). CEOs in France are the most active on social media. Denmark follows closely in second place, while Australia shares third place with the Netherlands. As of 2017, CEOs in the United States still have the most followers, despite the country ranking only fifth for total presence on social media. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook tops the chart worldwide with over 11 million followers on Twitter (an increase of 120 pc since 2017).

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, leads the way on LinkedIn, with over 6 million followers (an increase of 300 pc since 2017). Bhavya Doshi, asst. vice president of ECCO’s India agency Pressman, said that LinkedIn is becoming increasingly important, while most CEOs continue to shy away from communicating on Twitter.“On Twitter, the language is often more pointed, and the risk of backlash from consumers is significantly higher. With LinkedIn, this risk is lower – and more CEOs are recognising the opportunities this social media channel offers,” said Doshi.

India’s domestic market for computer services is forecast to grow faster than their exports, fuelled by the government’s Digital India programme and the country’s burgeoning start-up environment, according to a United Nations (UN) report.“The computer services industry in India is increasingly catering to the domestic market, leveraging expertise gained from exporting, while at the same time reducing an over-reliance on such exports,” stated the report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Noting that India ranked fourth in terms of growth in the share of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector’s value added in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 2010 and 2017, the report said, “The domestic market for computer services in the country is forecast to grow faster than their exports, fuelled by the government’s Digital India programme, its burgeoning start-up and venture capital scene and increased computer use by the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).” The first-ever Digital Economy Report said the size of the global digital economy range from 4.5 to 15.5 pc of world GDP. The US and China together account for almost 40 pc of the total value added in the ICT sector globally. The US has the world’s largest ICT sector at about a trillion dollars, almost twice the size of the second largest, China. The report further said that within the ICT sector, computer services are the largest component, with a 40 pc share of total value added.

“India has the largest share among developing countries in this context,” it said. On an individual economy basis, some economies saw growth in the share of the ICT sector’s value added in their GDP between 2010 and 2017. Taiwan ranked first, owing to growth in ICT manufacturing. India ranked fourth, with growth driven mainly by computer services. Ireland tops the list of countries in terms of value added in computer services as a share of GDP by quite a significant margin, reflecting the strong presence of regional offices of US digital companies, followed by Sweden. Unlike for other parts of the ICT sector for this indicator, only India among the developing countries features among the top 10. India ranked 9th in e-commerce sales in 2017 with total sales of USD 400 billion or 15 pc as a share of GDP. Of the total sale, share of B2B was 91 pc at USD 369 billion. India, which ranked second, is the largest developing-country exporter of such services, almost a third of which are computer services. China and India are leading in the creation of start-ups, accounting for 58 pc of the total for the region.

A survey on Internet security and trust conducted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and Ipsos, in collaboration with UNCTAD and the Internet Society, has found that 78 pc of Internet users in 25 economies were at least somewhat concerned about their privacy online. Concerns were found to be the most widespread in Egypt, Hong Kong (China), India, Mexico and Nigeria, where that proportion was 90 pc or higher. By contrast, the lowest level of concern was noted in Kenya, at 44 pc. As per the study, wealth and power in the digital sphere are increasingly being held by a small number of so-called “super platforms”, comprising the seven global brands Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent and Alibaba.

Between them, these companies account for two-thirds of the total market value of the top 70 platforms: in China, WeChat, owned by Tencent, and AliPay, an Alibaba company, have captured virtually the entire Chinese mobile payment market between them. Google accounts for some 90 pc of the global Internet search market, and Facebook is the top social media platform in more than 90 pc of countries. The reports shows that these companies are competing aggressively to stay on top, acquiring competitors, expanding into new services, lobbying policy-makers, and establishing strategic partnerships with leading multinationals in traditional sectors. The UNCTAD warned that the dominance of these platforms is leading to a concentration and consolidation of digital value, rather than reducing inequalities between and within countries, with developing countries at the bottom of the pile. The report called for a rethink, that will bring about a fairer distribution of the gains from the digital economy.

After mobile telephony, the new market leader in telecom sector in India, RelianceJio, owned by India’s largest conglomerate Reliance Industries, is set to disrupt the market for broadband services as well. The company has begun rolling out fibre optic broadband services in the country and has bundled various services as well as hardware in addition to the connection to make it an appealing offer. Though it is not the cheapest in price, no other operator can match Reliance Jio’s coverage of 1,600 cities. Most of the other private players are focused on the top urban areas. Airtel, which is RJio’s top rival, offers fibre broadband in about 90 cities. BSNL’s national network primarily runs on copper wires, which has a lesser capacity compared to optical fibre cables. “Unlike mobile services where RJio disrupted the market by dropping data tariffs, in the case of broadband services, RJio’s disruption is in creating infrastructure,” said a market analyst.

When it comes to adopting digitisation and online platforms, Indian users are among the top consumers globally. The growth in consumption of video and online content has been growing exponentially over the last two years. However, on network quality, Indian consumers are behind global benchmarks. Until recently, mobile operators were adopting a piece meal approach in establishing a high-speed broadband infrastructure.

The scenario changed in 2016 after RJio launched 4G services at price points that were drastically lower than the prevailing tariffs. Since then, data consumption has shot through the roof, with over 500 million users having access to data services. But when more Indians come online and start consuming data, then the existing wireless networks will not be enough to support that demand. Analysts say unlike the mobile telecom roll out in which Reliance put the price at a fraction of the established players, the company could not have played the pricing game, given the pressure on its balance sheet. Recently, Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries, announced his mission to cut down debt to zero in 18 months. “Given that RJio has already leaked money on its mobile services, it would not have been wise to play the pricing game in broadband,” said a former executive of a top telecom company. Also, unlike in mobile services, where competition is high, the market for fixed broad band is very small. Therefore, RJio’s focus seems to be on growing the market, rather than fighting for the existing pie. The other big disruption that could come about with Jio’s launch is the way consumers watch TV content. By offering bundled TV channels and OTT applications, RJio is hoping that viewers of DTH and cable TV will switch to broadband-based entertainment. To drive this shift, RJio is bundling a host of services with the broadband connection. Every user gets a fixed line phone, which can be used to make free voice calls anywhere within the country.

Chinese tech giant, Alibaba, will soon launch its own e-commerce business in India through its subsidiary UCWeb, a senior company official has said. UCWeb Global Business, vice president Huaiyuan Yang told a wire service that the company’s planned foray in e-commerce space will not have an adverse impact on Paytm, in which Alibaba owns 30.15 pc stake. Alibaba Group own 3 pc stake in Snapdeal. “We have Alibaba’s e-commerce gene in us. We are actually trying to start innovative business model related to e-commerce. We are going to launch a new e-commerce product in India this year,” Yang said on the sidelines of Alibaba Philanthropy forum. UCWeb’s UC Browser has been available in India since 2009. It claims to have registered 1.1 billion user downloads worldwide (excluding China) with half of its global installs from India. It also claims to have 130 million monthly active users in the country. When asked about probable impact of UCWeb’s foray into e-commerce on Paytm’s business, Yang said, “E-commerce is very vast business. There are various part of e-commerce business and several products. UC will choose section according to our business. We will partner with the right players and we will not compete with them (Paytm)”. UCWeb also have plans to start the sale of movie tickets online, he said.

India’s push on mandatory data localisation which has been contested by developed countries, has found some support from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In its latest report on the digital economy, it observes that governments may decide to restrict data flow for reasons such as privacy of data and protection of their citizens, security and economic development. “The only way for developing countries to exercise effective economic “ownership” of and control over the data generated in their territories maybe to restrict cross-border flows of important personal and community data,” the report said. It argued that this was necessary due to the lack of any global agreement for recognising ownership of community data — once the data leaves the home jurisdiction, the notion of ownership becomes largely meaningless.

According to the report, India generated the ninth-highest e-commerce sales globally in 2017, by generating a total business of USD 400 billion. This included goods and services sold online, transactions via platform-based companies such as ride-hailing apps and room-sharing platforms. The contribution to GDP was 15 pc. Data localisation, which requires companies to store data collected from individuals in a country in local servers and not in another country or jurisdiction, is an area of hot debate globally. India is facing huge pressure from countries including the US and EU members to give up its insistence on data localisation.

While the RBI has made data localisation mandatory for payment systems, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is working on a policy which places a number of restrictions on cross-border data transfer, such as disallowing sharing of the data with a third-party. The argument against data localisation by developed countries is that restrictions on data flow would increase the cost of operations of foreign companies in India, and that it would also impede growth of business. The UNCTAD report punctured the argument that data localisation impedes digital trade. The report said that cross-border data flows in themselves may not involve either trade or e-commerce.