What brands must relearn as India’s consumer economy resets for 2030

New Delhi: India’s consumer economy is headed for its next growth curve, but the rules that worked in the last decade will not guarantee relevance in the next.

A new Fireside Ventures consumer insights report, The Indian Consumer at 2030, maps how spending, media habits, and category priorities are changing across cohorts and geographies, and why brands and platforms need to replan everything from product mix to messaging and media allocation.

The report is built from more than 25 consumer studies, inputs from over 1,500 founders, 100-plus ecosystem leaders, and extensive on-the-ground discussions, offering a forward view of where the Indian wallet is moving.

At the macro level, the report pegs India’s retail market at around $1 trillion by 2030, driven by rising disposable incomes and digitisation. It expects the structure of retail to be far more channel-diverse than it is today. General trade, which commanded 91% share in 2014, is projected to drop to about 70% by 2030 as modern trade, e-commerce, quick commerce and brand-owned sites expand fast. D2C sites and quick commerce together could be up to 5% of the market.

For advertisers, this points to a multi-touchpoint consumer journey where discovery, comparison, purchase and post-purchase engagement happen across different screens and surfaces, often within the same week.

Branded retail is expected to double to about $730 billion by 2030, nearly 45% of the overall retail pie.

The report says new-age brands will continue to grow two to three times faster than legacy players as they ride digital distribution and sharper niche positioning.

This matters for category leaders because competition will no longer come only from known peers. It will arrive from a wider set of digitally native challengers that use influencers, community commerce, and content-led funnels as core go-to-market tools.

The digital audience base underpinning these shifts is already visible. Internet access is projected to reach roughly 1.1 billion users by 2030, with 360 to 400 million online commerce users, and smartphone penetration around 70%. The report flags that digital now reaches twice as many people as TV, while OTT monthly audiences have grown sharply since 2019 and social platforms like Instagram have become mass media pipes in their own right.

Media planners should read that as a warning against treating digital as a side budget. For many cohorts, digital is the primary screen, and television is the second screen.

A key theme in the report is the reshaping of India’s income pyramid and the way it changes addressable markets. Consumers in Tier 1 or Metro, roughly 15% of the population, already drive 35% of retail and 60% of branded purchases. Meanwhile, Bharat, the remaining 85%, is digitising quickly and is increasingly willing to try brands and experiences once seen as “urban only.”

The report expects smaller towns and rural markets to rapidly catch up with mid-tier cities, adding over 100 million new consumers to branded essentials, organised retail, and digital-first services over the next few years.

For advertisers, this is the next scale frontier. The aspiration set is converging across tiers, but access gaps still shape how people buy. Winning in Bharat will depend on tighter price packs, regional language content, and distribution that blends Kirana, quick commerce and social discovery.

The report lays out 13 big shifts that will define the Indian consumer by 2030.

The first shift is aspiration parity across metros and small towns, with access catching up through platforms that formalise retail and expand branded choice.

The second is a richer, more experiential HNI consumer. It notes a rapid rise in the affluent base and that high-income buyers are upgrading from products to product-plus-experience bundles, from skincare to derma clinics or luggage to curated travel. This is where premiumisation, loyalty programs, and high-attention media environments will matter.

The third shift is the centrality of women as economic actors. Female labour force participation is projected to rise further by 2030, while women postpone motherhood, invest more in wellness, and drive household decisions across food, fashion, health and education. Brands that solve for time-saving, personalisation and self-care, and platforms that package these stories credibly, stand to gain disproportionate wallet share.

The fourth shift reframes the family purchase funnel. Gen Alpha and Gen Z are already shaping what families buy, even when parents pay. The report says Gen Z will be the most powerful internal marketer for consumer brands and could make half of incumbent brands irrelevant by the mid-2030s if they fail to adapt. Marketers should read that as a cue to treat youth culture as a primary driver of mainstream demand, not a niche sub-plan.

The next set of shifts has direct implications for category and communication strategy. Shopping is no longer gendered. Men and women are buying from the same shelves in personal care and fashion, driven by self-expression and wellness.

Health is becoming a status symbol across cohorts, pushing demand for nutraceuticals, healthy snacking, gym memberships, wearables and personalised nutrition.

The report also says everyday eating rituals are fragmenting into individualised meals, often delivered or assembled, with nutrition taking priority over tradition. This points to new growth for food services, functional foods and health-led brands and suggests that media stories around performance, longevity and self-improvement are likely to be high-attention contexts.

Sports and fitness are flagged as a major wallet mover. With infrastructure expansion, mobile coaching and tech tracking, one in three households could invest in structured sports routines weekly. For advertisers, this strengthens the case for sports media but also for local community-based fitness ecosystems where brands can build repeat engagement beyond marquee events.

Travel is moving from an occasional indulgence to an identity signal. The report expects travel to become a monthly habit for many, with more subscription and AI-curated experiences. It also projects outbound travel to touch about 40 million Indians by 2028. This shift sets up opportunities for travel brands, credit and payments, luggage, grooming, fashion, and content platforms that can own the planning and inspiration funnel.

Children are emerging as a large “wallet” category. Urban per-child spending is projected to rise sharply by 2030, with education, sports, mental wellness and nutrition as top priorities.

Dining out is also becoming a social ritual, supported by rapid QSR and restaurant growth, turning food-out into a recurring lifestyle spend rather than a functional need. Education is becoming global and always-on, with more Indian students studying abroad and alternate learning stacked early.

The final two shifts matter to almost every advertiser and media platform. First, experiences will trump products across categories, with India’s experience economy projected to cross $300 billion by 2030.

Second, AI will rewire the consumer business model, turning users into co-creators through hyper-personalisation in fashion, beauty, edtech, sports coaching and vernacular discovery in Bharat. For media owners, this is a cue to build AI-assisted commerce, content recommendation and creator tools into their platforms, and to rethink ad formats for conversational and personalised environments.

Put together, the report’s message is clear. The next phase of Indian consumption will be driven as much by who the consumer is becoming as by what they are buying. For advertisers, that means segmenting beyond age and income into motivations like self-expression, wellness and belonging, and matching those with the right channels.

For media platforms, it means building for a consumer who is always on, multi-screen, experience-first, and increasingly guided by AI. The opportunity is large, but the winners will be those who shift early, not those who wait for old playbooks to catch up.