Audi 2007 Annual Report Download - page 17

Kidwai are on Fortune magazine’s list of the most powerful
businesswomen in the world. I was part of a discussion at the
Harvard Club. Our panel included Arun Sarin, CEO of Voda-
fone Group Plc. What impressed him, he said, was that every
global corporation was investing in India or was looking for a
way into the market. Afterwards, TV crews jostled to ask us
about the Indian economy. I sat back in my chair and mar-
veled for a moment. Just what was going on?
I thought back to the India of 20 years before. Even at
that time, we were a populous nation with a free-spending
middle class, estimated at 100 million plus. And yet, nobody
seemed to care very much about us. But today, India is very
much the flavor of the decade.
Even America seems fascinated by India. American business-
men who used to be content flying over Mumbai now make it
a point to plan a stopover there. The Made in India label, once
treated with derision, is now accorded a rare respect in such
fields as information technology. Each month, the government’s
Foreign Investment Promotion Board finds that it has more
applications for investment than it can handle. Prices on the
stock market have risen to dizzying levels over the past three
years – some indices are up by 300 percent.
And our popular culture has finally got the respect it de-
serves. Last year, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, I was asked more
questions about Bollywood stars than about famous writers.
Now even America seems to have woken up to the power of
Bollywood as a global alternative to Hollywood.
You can see the changes within India too. Two decades ago, it
was still something of a mark of pride to have a landline tele-
phone in your home. Now, cell phones are so ubiquitous that
they are no longer a status symbol. Owning your own home
seemed like a dream for the middle classes. Today, even young
couples are moving into places of their own.
The rich are simply blossoming. The result? Property
prices in New Delhi and Mumbai rival Manhattan and
London’s Mayfair, skyrocketing by more than 35 percent in
2006 alone. The prices of certain office complexes have even
doubled during the construction phase. The world’s most
An economic miracle: India is a country whose economy grows by some nine percent annually on average, and whose young IT talents
are highly sought by global corporations. A country where even farmers with ox-drawn carts use cell phones.
“Now every global corporation
is investing in India or looking for
a way into the market.”
Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone Group Plc
Photos: Eye Ubiquitous/Hutchison, Bialobrzeski/laif