India internet trends 2022: What Indians bought and watched during the year

India’s internet economy bounced back from the pains of COVID-19 during the year 2022. The early months of 2022 saw the economy registering COVID-induced growth in terms of innovation, a report has said. The country saw an uptick in sales on e-commerce platforms, with most online users coming from tier 2 cities and beyond. The year also witnessed a new trend in content consumption and advertising.
“Post-pandemic times led to the tremendous growth of both B2B and B2C online marketplace platforms and transformed online shopping from a nice-to-have to a must-have worldwide,” a report by management consulting firm Redseer said.
2022 registered two times online sales than 2019
The report said that the festive sale on e-commerce platforms recorded 2x sales as compared to 2019. The e-Commerce retailers (such as Amazon and Flipkart) recorded sales worth Rs 76,000 crore during the one-month festival sale event, which is almost double the pre-COVID pandemic sale of Rs 40,000 crore in 2019.

“Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities drove festive sales, and a significant portion of the sales came from electronic products and mobile phones,” the report noted.
India’s internet industry to reach $5 trillion valuation
India has the second largest internet user base in the world but it witnessed a few hiccups this year. Despite that, the Indian internet industry is expected to grow to reach a valuation of $5 trillion by 2030.
“As digital will continue to play a significant role, India’s internet GMV (not valuation) will grow to about $1 trillion by 2030, equivalent to $5 trillion in public and private market cap,” the Redseer report said.
India’s online content consumption increases
India has 780 million internet users and an average Indian spends around 7.3 hours per day on their smartphone – one of the highest in the world. The report notes that most of the country’s user base would continue to come from tier 2+ cities.

Furthermore, Indians are spending their time in online messaging, social media, YouTube streaming, watching OTT content and short-form video. “There is a new trend in content consumption where the time spent on user-generated content is 2X of platform-generated content,” according to the report.
Shift to new-age content formats
The report mentions that 2022 saw a new trend in content consumption and digital advertising. The boost in digital consumption and increased digital penetration in Tier-2+ cities were the primary growth drivers for the spike in India’s digital advertising ecosystem. Consumers are reportedly adopting short videos and India is likely to witness a massive surge in digital ad investments.