Many leaders at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2024 are betting big on India's growth story, and one of them is S4 Capital's Martin Sorrell, who expects Prime Minister Narendra Modi to get re-elected as India nears the 2024 general election.
"We got an election in India and Modi will be re-elected and that is good for India and for the world," Sorrell, Executive Chairman, S4 Capital, a digital advertising and marketing services company, told Moneycontrol on the sidelines of WEF 2024.
Despite his pessimism about the world, he remained optimistic about India.
"He (Modi) is the ultimate master of branding and branding countries. He has done a superb job on positioning (India) and if you look at the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth in India, the last year's projections for this year, it will embarrass a number of other countries."
The advertising guru added that amid the geopolitical issues involving the US and China, the Russia-Ukraine situation, and the intense conflict in the Middle East, India has emerged as the go-to market and an alternative to China in Asia.
"India is very well positioned and with very strong growth potential. India will be the third largest economy of the world by 2025. I remain a raging (India) bull," he said.
Sorrell said that India is top of the agenda for many and the world's gaze is on India. "Three of the top five countries will be in Asia by 2050. India will be at number three. Countries like Japan will continue to be important but India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, among others is what I call the new Asia which is is really coming to perform."
On one of the most talked about aspects artificial intelligence (AI), Sorrell pointed out some challenges. He said that while AI has huge opportunities especially in advertising, misuse of it is a concern.
"AI is another revolution and as big as internet and smartphone but when it comes to challenges many countries will have elections this year and it is inevitable that bad actors will misbehave and use AI. On the other hand, AI will inform voters. But it can also mis-inform."
The big tech companies will have to focus on self regulation, he said.
"Tech giants like Alphabet, Meta, Alibaba, Amazon, Tencent and ByteDance accounted for at least $450 billion out of the $650 billion in digital marketing last year. They will get bigger as a result of AI so they have to impose self regulation. It is hopeless for the regulator to believe that they can keep up with all these tech giants. So, regulators have to work with the tech giants for self regulation."
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