he 2010s perfected the new inventions that man had been conceptualising since the late 2000s. I remember the primary email that I ever sent. it had been a reply to a lover who had just discovered Gmail also . Although Gmail had started in 2004 in India, it took a couple of years for everybody to become conversant in it, beyond the working population.
But the 2010s were different. People already had access to mobiles, which allowed them to undertake new things as and once they came up. it might not be wrong to mention that folks were expecting new things to undertake . Call it dependency or curiosity.
Tech giants, meanwhile, were brainstorming innovative solutions to common problems that folks faced. Transport, communications and entertainment — there was no field that was untouched by startups.
Between 2015 and 2020 was when all the magic really happened. which is when, I say again, we perfected technology.
Below are the expansion charts for the ten major categories of startups that folks used most within the last five years.
Note that the expansion corresponds to 60,50,000 being the very best figure on the y-axis, which was the utmost number of coupons redeemed in any category during the amount .
– Online education
– OTT (Over-the-top) subscriptions
– Ticket booking (travel)
– Car rentals
– Bike taxi
– Fantasy sports
– Online rummy
– Groceries
– Meat ordering
– Movie tickets
Online education
Udemy started within the late 2000s but the top of the 2010s marked a storm within the learning industry, with the start of several new platforms.
OTT subscribers grew by 250 per cent in 2018. This was also one among the categories where the users multiplied within the 2020 lockdown. People could only watch new movies on OTTs in 2020 and more content was produced within the sort of originals by Netflix and other platforms under their own names.
OTT platforms were also the well-liked medium for movie distributors to release new movies and it continues even today. This was the very best redeemed category in 2020.
Travel tickets
Online travel booking came up as a saviour from long queues. Almost 5,00,000 people used coupons for travel booking in 2015, which kept on increasing since then. People booking tickets online increased by 100 per cent in 2019. However, travel coupons were redeemed far less in 2020 thanks to travel ban and therefore the lockdown.
Less people used transportation services, online ticket booking, car rentals and bike taxis in 2020.
Car rentals
People shifted from buying to renting which gave rise to several new renting services. However, the primary official app that a lot of folks heard about — Zoom Car — changed the way people commuted intercity. It made it possible to rent cars for even an hour, making it possible for a bigger group of individuals to drive inside the town , for shorter distances even once they didn’t own a car.
The highest car rentals coupons were redeemed in 2019. There has been constant growth since 2015. However, an identical trend as online ticket booking was observed in 2020 when there was a drastic decline within the number of individuals renting cars. this might be associated with the lockdown and general skepticism by people about travelling in cabs.
Bike taxi
People got a substitute to posing for rides or borrowing bikes within the sort of bike taxis, where anyone could simply hail a motorcycle at a rate as low as Rs 15 per trip. Rapido launched this new concept, after which taxi giants like Uber and Ola also opted for the mode. The bike taxi coupons gradually increased over the years.
Introduction of Ola and Uber bike taxis caused a spike in bike-taxi users by 286 per cent.
Fantasy sports
The era of fantasy sports started in 2012 with Dream11 which paved the way for several more such platforms. The games got bigger attention from 2017 but the very best coupon redemption happened in 2020.
It would be correct to mention that the lockdown had an enormous effect on the amount of individuals who play fantasy games.
Online rummy
Online rummy began in India with Rummy Circle, which soon attracted eyeballs of the many rummy lovers across the country with massive coupons being redeemed within the very first year itself. This also saw more growth within the last year of the last decade , which is usually because people were reception and were trying to find new ways to spend time.
The number of individuals playing online rummy increased by 12 per cent per annum for the last three years. In 2020, 5,600 new people started playing online rummy.
Groceries
Buying clothes or electronics online has been around for a few time but adapting to ordering groceries online took time for people. But eventually, that also increased over the years.
It was in 2020 that the majority coupons were being redeemed for groceries. which was when many of the e-commerce stores began choosing grocery delivery services also . Big Basket was the primary one during this arena since it’s a primarily a grocery delivery app. However, within the late 2010s, many new names like Amazon Pantry, Grofers, Jiomart, Reliance Fresh et al. were added.
Ordering groceries online has been constantly growing since 2015. In 2020, the lockdown and therefore the reliance of individuals on online delivery increased online grocery shopping by 12 per cent.
Meat ordering
Meat ordering has been successful since the time it came in. It reduced the effort looking for meat shops or buying them offline as deliveries happened within a couple of hours of placing the order. Now almost every grocery delivery app lists meat together of the things on their website.
The highest spike in online orders of meat was in 2017 at 58 per cent. Meat orders increased by 8 per cent per annum from 2019.
Movie tickets
Online movie tickets have made life simpler for cinema enthusiasts. the extra internet handling fees isn’t stopping movie buffs from using an app like BookMyShow to book movie tickets.
BookMyShow started in 2007 and have become a serious name in booking online movie tickets. But soon all other payments apps and wallets offered their own movie booking solution to consumers. This led to more people using the service.
The highest movie coupons were redeemed in 2019. the amount went down by 12 per cent in 2020 because theatres pack up and no new movies hit the large screens thanks to Covid-19. the amount however floated thanks to online concerts and shows.
In a nutshell
2020 has increased users in categories like e-learning. this may still see growth within the coming years also since people are now habituated thereto . Other categories like bike taxi, movie tickets and online games will see growth also .
Categories that grew during lockdown: Fantasy sports, OTTs, rummy, bike taxi, groceries, meat ordering, online education.
Categories that decreased during lockdown: Car rentals, travel, and films went down an equivalent year.
