Every Indian Will Own a Smartphone in Next 5 Years: NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant

Every Indian will have a smartphone in the next five years, Niti Aayog Chief Executive Amitabh Kant said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the India Digital Summit organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), Kant said there were nearly 400 million smartphone users in the country.

He said this was a period of huge technology disruption in the country.

"Today, 85 percent of the devices are still unconnected. Therefore, there is a huge opportunity in the Internet of Things (IoT) space. The opportunity would be in the range of $70 billion (roughly Rs. 4.47 lakh crores) by 2025," he said.

According to him, Artificial Intelligence (AI) alone will generate opportunity to the tune of $32 billion (roughly Rs. 2.04 lakh crores).

"Advanced robotics are already handling 25 percent of the jobs. This will rise to 45 percent in the coming years."

"India is already ranked globally as the most active Internet user globally on a monthly basis. Digital transaction will touch $100 trillion (roughly Rs. 64 lakh crores) in the next 10 years," he told the gathering.

With 99 percent Aadhaar penetration and bank account opened under Jan Dhan Yojana, he said, the scope was immense for the Fin-Tech industry.

"As far as the start-up community goes, 'Make in India' initiative had brought in a paradigm change in the financial ecosystem. While we have 4,000 start-ups, it will go up to 12,000 by 2020," Kant said, adding that about 600 start-ups were there in the FinTech sector which will become a $14 billion (roughly Rs. 89,000 crores) opportunity by 2020.

The challenges today for the country were to provide safe drinking water, create infrastructure and build flyovers. All these give unicorns a unique opportunity to invest and explore, Kant said.