Online fashion retail in India to hit $35 bn by 2020: Google

Increasing internet penetration and growing preference for online shopping is expected to help the online fashion retail market in India touch $35 billion by 2020, Google India said today.

Fashion retail on e-commerce portals is expected to constitute 35 per cent of the total online retail revenue generated in India by 2020, Google India director (ecommerce and online) Nitin Bawankule said at an event in New Delhi.

"By 2020, India is expected to generate $100 billion online retail revenue out of which $35 billion will be through fashion e-commerce. Online apparel sales are set to grow four times in coming years," he said.

According to a Google India research, every third shopping search from the country on the world's largest search engine is fashion-related, and the queries in the category are growing at 66 per cent year-on-year.

Bawankule said the number of online shoppers in India is set to grow from 40 million now to 100 million by 2016 and 250 million by 2020.

By 2018, the country is set to witness 500 million Internet users, whereas 280 million smartphone users could be the key drivers for e-commerce portals, he added.