Digital Transformation To Add $154 Billion To India's GDP By 2021, Says Microsoft

Digital transformation in the country is expected to contribute about USD 154 billion to India's GDP by 2021, tech giant Microsoft today said.

The study by Microsoft and IDC, titled Unlocking the economic impact of digital transformation in Asia Pacific", said there has been a dramatic acceleration in the pace of digital transformation across India and Asia-Pacific economies.

"In 2017, about 4 per cent of India's GDP was derived from digital products and services created directly through the use of digital technologies like mobility, cloud, internet of things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI)," Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari told reporters here.

Notably, a separate report by Accenture has showed that AI could add $957 billion to the Indian economy by changing the nature of work to create better outcomes for businesses and society. Additionally, a recent report by research and strategy consultancy Zinnov Zones has highlighted that the Indian subcontinent holds a whopping 43% the global Internet of Things (IoT) market.

Microsoft India President further added that within the next four years, it is estimated that nearly 60 per cent of India's GDP will have a strong connection to the digital transformation trends.

"India is clearly on the digital transformation fast track. Organisations are increasingly deploying emerging technologies such as AI, and that will accelerate digital transformation-led growth even further," he said.

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The study conducted with 1,560 respondents from mid and large-sized organisations across 15 economies.

The report found that digital transformation efforts for organisations range between 11 per cent and 14 per cent.
"Business leaders expect to see more than 40 per cent improvements in key areas by 2020, with the biggest jump expected in productivity, customer advocacy as well as profit margin," Maheshwari said.

It is to be noted that in this year's finance budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that budget doubled the fund allocation on Digital India programme to Rs 3073 crore in 2018-19.

Last May, a US-based institute has published a report stating that some of biggest US companies like Google, Apple, IBM, Pfizer, Pepsi and Coke, McDonald's etc. are currently holding over a whopping $2.6 trillion in offshore accounts, and if looked closely, one would observe that the untaxed funds from these US companies is more than India's GDP.