An Inquiry into the Impact of India’s App Economy

Abstract

The app economy shares complementarities with India’s well established IT software services industry. The economic crisis of 2008 brought the industry under pressure and companies resorted to layoffs and/or a slowdown in fresh recruitment. The challenge from Chinese and Russian firms exacerbated the situation7 . The upcoming app economy can become a ready solution for graduating computer engineers/ experienced IT professionals in India. With adequate training and orientation, India’s talented software engineers can be absorbed in this steadily expanding sector. For the United States, apps are credited to have created 519,000 jobs as of April 20128. The purpose of this study is to estimate the direct, indirect and induced employment multipliers for India’s app economy and to identify constraints in the development, distribution and usage of apps. No other study has so far attempted to capture the economic and social impacts of apps in India.