The Indian pyramid has too large a bottom - Not very flattering for a lady aspiring for a leaner and meaner constitution.

Who exactly are the BOP (Bottom of the Pyramid) consumers? Our research based on available secondary data provides us with income, expenditure and savings profile for six income classifications. These classifications are based on household incomes. We define the bottom two classes (less than 75,000 pa and 75,000 to 150,000 pa) as the BOP consumers. Our estimates for 2008-09, show that of the total 70 million urban households, 39.5% or 27.7 million are BOP, by our estimates. In the rural segment BOPs are more prevalent, as many as 81.2% of the 159.3 million rural households are BOP. This is a very high proportion, and tells us that in spite of the moderate economic successes over the last 15 years, we have a long way to go.
The good news is that the direction is positive. In 2006-07, our estimates show that urban BOPs were 45.3% of the households and rural BOP households constituted 84.3% of the households. However, a cursory look at the pace of change shows that it is clearly not good enough. For instance, at this rate it will take rural households at least 25 years to reach the proportions that urban households have, which itself is not very flattering. 

The Bottom of The Indian Pyramid

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Tags: bottom of pyramid, consumer, economic research, economy, expenditure, gdp, household, income, markets, saving

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Consumer Markets, Indian Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.