We have been talking about the Budget Telecom Network Model for sometime. But as the Economist points out, the story is bigger than just telecom. South Asian innovation, driven by the need to sell to poor people, may remake the economic landscape in rich countries too.
Most strikingly, Indian companies have produced a new type of innovation, variously dubbed “frugal”, “reverse” and “Gandhian”. The essence is to reduce the price of a product or service by a breathtaking amount—80% rather than 10%—by removing unnecessary bells and whistles. Tata Motors is selling its “people’s car” for $3,000; GE’s Indian arm offers a medical ECG machine for $400; Bharat Biotech sells a single dose of its hepatitis B vaccine for 20 cents and Bharti Airtel provides one of the cheapest wireless telephone services in the world. These frugal products are likely to disrupt established Western companies (including GE itself) by forcing them to engage in a bloody price war.
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