"E-commerce Business to Reach USD 20 Billion by 2020"

Chennai, Dec 15 (PTI) Riding high on several online portals offering huge discounts, the domestic e-commerce industry is expected to reach USD 20 billion-mark by 2020, a top industry official said today. "The e-commerce business is expected to grow at 70 per cent (year-on-year) this year with revenues of USD 6 billion.

By 2020, it is expected to reach USD 20 billion", Cognizant India, Executive Vice-Chairman, R Chandrasekaran said at the inauguration of two-day conference on 'Digital Infrastructure: Enabling the World of Tomorrow'. In last one week, e-commerce portal Flipkart offered huge discounts to customers for purchase of products through its mobile application, while internet giant Google conducted the annual Google Online Shopping Festival.

Also speaking at the event, T K Ramachandran, Principal Secretary, Tamil Nadu Information Technology Department, said the state government plans to establish a warehouse for Startups in association with National Association of Software and Service Companies.

"We are coming up with the idea of startup's warehouse along with NASSCOM. These startup's warehouse will offer plug and play services and other services in Chennai and other tier two and three cities", Ramachandran said. On the state government's ambitious flagship free laptop scheme to students, he said the government has so far issued over two million laptops and another one million laptops are yet to be delivered.

He added that one of the three data centres of technology giant Microsoft in India would be in Tamil Nadu. "Microsoft is setting up data centre in Tamil Nadu", he said but declined to elaborate. The state government is also planning to provide internet services through its other wing Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable Television - TACTV, whereby households would get internet services at subsidised rates, he added.

Source: PTI