E-commerce sector to grow 17% with $38.5 bn GMV in FY18

E-commerce sector is expected to grow by 17 percent in gross merchandise value (GMV) at USD 38.5 billion during the financial year 2018, IT industry body Nasscom said in its outlook for the year on Tuesday.

The growth is being led by an increase in the demand for online hotel booking and online food and grocery delivery.

The global digital spend is expected to increase to USD 310 billion in 2018 from USD 180 billion in 2017, reporting a 20 percent growth.

The country currently has 5,200 startups with about 1,000 added last year. This makes India the third largest startups hub in the world.

The gross valuation of the startups has grown to USD 40 billion with companies such as Flipkart and Paytm constituting of USD 14 billion and USD 10 billion of valuations, respectively.

Flipkart is also in talks with American retailer Walmart Inc and this round is expected to swell its valuation further to over USD 20 billion.

According to Nasscom, the startup sector is now witnessing a mature growth with greater focus on B2B.

India currently has 465 million internet users against a global user base of 3.2 billion. The country currently has over 300 million smartphone users and the same is expected to grow to 800 million by 2020.