"Make apps in India," Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal has urged developers, lending weight to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' campaign.
"It will generate so much value that nothing could match it if we get it right," he said at the first edition of Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) Bangalore. Smartphone growth in India is expected to see a quantum jump, and apps developed for local use could potentially have a deep impact.
InMobi co-founder Naveen Tewari underscored the point, saying the country should look at setting up mobile app villages focused on creating a new app economy here.
Bansal noted that mobile devices had become affordable and cost of internet had come down. "A Rs 6,000 phone today is better than the iPhone 3. In fact, my driver completed three years and I asked him what gift he wanted. He said he wanted a smartphone," he said.
A Flipkart survey estimates that 1 billion smartphones would be sold in India in the next five years compared to 40-50 million desktops and laptops during the same period. Talking about themes that Modi could discuss during his US visit, Bansal said, "As an e-commerce company, especially as a mobilecommerce company , we depend a lot on talent coming back to India, people who have done it before in the US. I think the PM's visit should motivate a lot of people to come back to India."
Tewari said India would see an exponential growth in the next 5-10 years the kind of growth that the US saw in the 1980s and 90s, and China in the 2000s. "We will see that kind of growth in India in 2015-25, and if you're sitting in Silicon Valley and assuming the next growth would come from there, you're absolutely not correct," he said.
Tewari noted that five years down the line, India would be importing $500 billion worth of software products a year, making it the second highest import category. "We can get our entrepreneurs to create $500 billion of stuff for us and keep that capital in the country. We have to create that entrepreneurial ecosystem," he said.
GMIC was launched in 2009, and its flagship event in Beijing is now considered Asia's largest mobile conference, drawing more than 20,000 attendees earlier this year. Chinese mobile companies Cheetah Mobile, Mobogenie and UCWeb were the top sponsors of the Bangalore event, indicating the deep interest that these companies have in the India market and in partnering with Indian mobile companies.
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