MAM
India’s rural markets are growing faster than its cities: MRSI
Rural volume and urban premiumisation are reshaping how brands must think about the world’s most watched consumer market
India’s consumption boom is no longer a metropolitan affair. That was the unambiguous message from a sharp, data-rich webinar hosted by the Market Research Society of India on 17th April, as analysts and a senior industry executive laid out a picture of a market fragmenting fast, growing unevenly, and demanding a great deal more sophistication from anyone hoping to sell into it.
The session, titled “Urban Wealth, Rural Volume, and What’s Next: The Great Indian Consumption Shift,” brought together Sharang Pant, customer success lead at NielsenIQ India, P.S. Pradeep, advanced analytics director at Worldpanel by Numerator, and Manish Makhijani, chief executive of RSPL Ltd’s hygiene care business. The moderator was Abhinav Goel.
Pant set the tone early. Smaller towns and rural markets, he argued, are now growing faster than metros in fast-moving consumer goods, though the nature of that growth is starkly different. Rural gains are volume-led; metros are being driven by premiumisation and price. E-commerce penetration, rising internet access and the spread of organised retail are, he said, pulling consumption outward from India’s big cities. Growth, he was at pains to emphasise, is neither uniform nor predictable and is increasingly income-led, requiring brands to think in regions rather than in national aggregates.
Pradeep added granularity to that picture. Rural India, he noted, still anchors overall FMCG volumes but lags behind urban markets in per-household spend. The coping behaviours on each side are telling: rural consumers are spreading purchases across more packs, often smaller ones, while urban shoppers are cutting trips and becoming more deliberate in what they buy. In urban areas, unbranded products are gaining ground; in rural, listed brands are holding their own, buoyed by better distribution networks, wider pricing options and a consumption basket still dominated by essentials. Premiumisation, he observed, is a story of two ends: the mass segment and the premium segment are both growing, while the middle is shrinking. Rural’s entry into premium, he added, is quietly happening through the smallest of pack sizes.
Makhijani brought the practitioner’s view, and it was a bracing one. A substantial share of India’s higher-income households, he pointed out, sits outside the metros, a fact that brands continue to underestimate. Stable inflation, rising rural incomes, infrastructure investments in roads and electrification, the spread of UPI and growing health awareness are all converging to reshape rural demand. Affordability, he stressed, must not be confused with an appetite for inferior products. “Aspirations remain high,” he said, with consumers expecting quality at accessible price points, frequently delivered through smaller pack formats.
He also made the case for a different kind of marketing machine in these markets: micro-distribution networks, rural influencer ecosystems, direct-to-retailer models, and hyperlocal, vernacular communication. “Rural consumers are not different,” he said, “but they operate in a different context, with different needs and language.” Understanding that distinction, he argued, is the price of entry.
The conclusion was hard to miss. India’s next wave of consumption will not be captured by a single strategy or a single price point. The brands that figure out how to be premium in Gurugram and affordable in a small-town kirana store at the same time, that can speak in Hindi in one district and Tamil in another, and that can reach a shop down a newly built rural road as efficiently as a metro mall, will be the ones that matter. Everyone else will be watching from the sidelines.
MUMBAI: In India’s fast-moving payments race, Visa has just swiped in a new leader. The company has named Suresh Sethi as its India country head, marking a key leadership shift as it sharpens its focus on digital payments growth in the market. Sethi steps into the role following his recent exit from Protean eGov Technologies, where he served as chief executive officer. He succeeds Sandeep Ghosh, who has moved on after more than four years at Visa to pursue an external opportunity.
The appointment comes at a time when Visa is doubling down on its expansion strategy across India and the wider region, deepening partnerships and accelerating adoption in an increasingly competitive digital payments ecosystem.
Sethi brings with him a broad, cross-market perspective shaped by decades of experience across corporate banking, retail financial services, mobile money and large-scale government technology initiatives. He began his career at Citigroup, where he spent 14 years working across India, Africa, South America and the United States, focusing on transaction banking services within the corporate bank.
His appointment signals a blend of institutional experience and market familiarity qualities that could prove critical as Visa navigates a landscape where fintech innovation, regulatory evolution and consumer adoption are all accelerating at once.
As digital payments in India continue to scale rapidly, the leadership change underscores a simple reality, in a market where every tap, scan and swipe counts, who leads the charge can matter just as much as the technology itself.
