India to replace China as next frontier for U.S. tech companies

On Sept. 25, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi began a 2-day visit to the nation’s center of technology: the Silicon Valley. Within 48 hours, Modi met nearly a dozen CEOs, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

Modi’s visit is evidence of India’s obvious ascendence in the tech universe.

However, most people still see China as the U.S.’s first priority for technological expansion, as it already is in the lead for the consumption of technology. According to Forbes magazine, China still takes “the trophy” of being the world’s largest Internet market. Following behind it are the U.S. and India.

Although China currently booms with its extensive use of technology, it is inevitable that India will surpass it, since India is quickly modernizing and providing its citizens with the latest technology without censorship. For example, all Indian citizens with access to technology have the capability of using every single existing social media platform.

India is the world’s fastest growing economy, and it would be foolish for American companies not to target India as a future market. Within the past year, China’s Internet usage increased by 7 percent, while India’s grew by 33 percent, according to Forbes.

In cell phones, China’s growth increased by 21 percent this past year, while India’s grew 54 percent.

At the rate that India’s citizens are gaining technology, it is likely that India will quickly become the highest consumer of technological goods, thus providing new markets for American companies.

China’s 1.35 billion population makes it capable of being the world’s technological leader, but its extreme censorship and restrictions on popular sites like Google and Facebook prevent it from reaching its maximum potential.

Without access to these leading websites, China significantly stunts its growth in technology fields, thus discouraging the U.S. from putting effort into expanding its technology there. As of now, Chinese leadership continues to be extremely restrictive and unwavering toward their Internet policies.

India, on the other hand, is a much easier frontier to work with, and it already has made efforts with Silicon Valley companies to promote the use of technology and open itself up to American markets.

For example, Google and India have formed a deal whereby Google provides free public Internet in hundreds of Indian railroad stations. These stations are usually extremely crowded, serving as “transit and social hubs,” according to the New York Times.

By pursuing such large projects, India already has an advantage in the race for American technological expansion.

China, by contrast, has effectively made itself an enemy through its in involvement in hacking scandals that seem to be supported by the Chinese government.

According to The Guardian, the Chinese government has been one of the main suspects in the September breach of 26.1 million fingerprint images. American officials have stated that these images could potentially help the Chinese government identify U.S. spies.

Due to hacking-related tensions between China and the U.S., it is difficult for American companies to fully trust the idea of expanding into Chinese territory.

It is clear that U.S. companies that are hoping to increase their profits would benefit from focusing more on  India as it rolls into a prosperous future.