63% of consumer durables sales by 2023 to be digitally influenced: Report

The consumer durables industry in India has the potential to touch the $36-billion mark by 2023, with nearly 63 per cent of the total sales projected to be digitally influenced.

A report by Boston Consulting Group and Google India has projected a healthy growth rate of 13 per cent for the consumer durables industry which includes TVs, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, water purifiers, microwaves and kitchen appliances.

“Today, 28 per cent of consumer durable sales is digitally influenced, and this is estimated to reach 63 per cent of total sales, amounting to $23 billion by 2023. About $10 billion of this will be online sales,” the report stated.

The report defines a sale as “digitally influenced” if the buyer uses internet during any stage of their purchase cycle.

The report further said that digital influence varies by product categories with it being “33 per cent for high average selling price (ASP) durables — such as ACs, Televisions, Refrigerators and Washing machines — and 20 per cent for lower ASP products, like small appliances, water purifiers and microwaves.”

With the number of digitally influenced consumers having doubled in the past four years, the digital medium is increasingly playing an important role in consumer’s buying decision.

“Digitally influenced consumers have increased five-fold in Tier-II and -III cities, and digitally influenced women consumers have increased 10x over last four years,” the report stated.

Nimisha Jain, MD and Partner, The Boston Consulting Group, India, said that nearly 18 billion of the consumer durable sales will reside with digitally influenced consumers who are undecided on their brands in 2023.

“Companies will have a short 2-3-week window to influence them and ability to timely and efficiently influence them will determine the winners of the future,” she added.

Vikas Agnihotri, Country Director, Sales, Google India added that with growing access and connectivity, consumers research online before they arrive at their purchase decisions for almost everything.

“While businesses have started to build their digital presence, there is a need to take a holistic approach to digital as the scale of its influence has grown rapidly, going well beyond top metros. Businesses need to create an always on digital strategy and create personalised interventions to tap different consumer demographics across all markets to achieve their business goals.”

The findings in this report are based on an extensive quantitative survey of 6,800 consumer durable buyers and qualitative discussions by Kantar IMRB.