I just saw some stats on Indian household estimates for 2007. I think these were prepared by Ogilvy & Mather in 2005. It says there are approx 200 million households in India. Of these 5.2 million are very rich, 75.5 million are in the consuming class, 81.7 million are climbers, 20.2 million are aspirants and 16.5 million are destitutes.
If the last three are combined you have a pyramid shape but if you keep them separate the figure resembles a person with a small head, a major pot belly and thin legs.
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Just a small correction, the source of this data is the NCAER data which was released in 2001 I think. They have brought out a series of whitebooks on various classes based on income. But given the fact that even Income tax department quotes numbers like 100,000 people with higher than 10 lakh p.a. taxable income, these numbers are highly suspect, but most consulting ( including mine) and analyst reports use these numbers.
While this report is probably the few I know which take a shot at undestanding income based segmentation of the Indian market, there are quite a few which follow the consumption base. state sponsored NSSO, the large sample NRS and other databases which are based on these two are quite good.
I have travelled quite a lot in the countryside during my stints in industry first and consulting now ( mid market growth companies are growing in such areas!!), and find that the rural affluence is usually mis represented by both income and consumption side stories. Also, the shape of the pyramid is very different with the middle class ( the paunch!!) being larger in the urban areas, while the rural pyramid is more of a dumb bell shape i think….
I have been trying to get some credible source for this kind of data and if anyone has views do share in…
If this categorization is indeed what I make of those titles, I can see an opportunity for a great social enterprise. Get the last 2 categories to serve the top 3 – using skills available with the former to serve a genuine market need felt by the latter ( Lijjat Papad, Amul, Seva ).
Deeply satisfying yet profitable.
I would wager that if you plotted this person over the last 15 years in each page of a small notebook, and flip the pages really fast, you will see the pot belly move from somewhere around the knees to around the stomach. The head will grow from a one dimension line to a 2-D box, and the shoulders will appear to grow massively. The person would have become twice his size of course (drawn scaled too absolute not percentage wise) but it will be a more healthy individual.
Next stop is using stilts instead of feet? Bigger head?