Focus: GS-III Indian Economy
Why in news?
The shared economy in India is estimated to be an about $2 billion industry by the end of the current 2020 year, according to a recent report by Maple Capital Advisors.
What is Shared Economy?
- The sharing economy is a way of distributing goods and services that differs from the traditional model of corporations hiring employees and selling products to consumers.
- In the sharing economy, individuals are said to rent or “share” things like their cars, homes and personal time to other individuals in a peer-to-peer fashion.
- The ‘shared economy’ includes segments such as co-working (Awfis, WeWork India), co-living (Stanza Living, OYO Life, Oxford Caps), shared mobility (Uber, Ola, Shuttl) and furniture rental (Furlenco, Rentomojo.)
- India mirrors Asia trends in these aspects and is thus poised for high growth and adoption of shared services.
Significance of Shared Economy in India
List
- India is at the cusp of a shared economy revolution. We are already witnessing phenomenal growth in this segment with both international companies and home-grown start-ups vying for market share.
- Even as the space is nascent, over $3.7 bn has been invested in this space and we expect this to accelerate from here, on the back of compelling demand and unit economics.
- In this era of growing concern on climate, wastage, resource scarcity and population intensity (especially in the developing world), the shared economy seems to be a sustainable, scalable and efficient form of addressing these concerns.
