India, the world's most populous nation, is a key market for
American brands that have rapidly expanded to target a growing base of affluent
consumers, many of whom remain infatuated with international labels seen as
symbols of moving up in life.
India, for example, is the biggest market by users for
Meta's WhatsApp and Domino's has more restaurants than any other brand in the
country. Beverages like Pepsi and Coca-Cola often dominate store shelves, and
people still queue up when a new Apple store opens or a Starbucks cafe doles
out discounts.
Although there was no immediate indication of sales being
hit, there's a growing chorus both on social media and offline to buy local and
ditch American products after Donald Trump imposed a 50% tariff on goods from
India, rattling exporters and damaging ties between New Delhi and
Washington.
Manish Chowdhary, co-founder of India's Wow Skin Science,
took to LinkedIn with a video message urging support for farmers and startups
to make "Made in India" a "global obsession," and to learn
from South Korea whose food and beauty products are famous worldwide.
"We have lined up for products from thousands of miles
away. We have proudly spent on brands that we don't own, while our own makers
fight for attention in their own country," he said.
Rahm
Shastry, CEO of India's DriveU, which provides a car driver on call service,
wrote on LinkedIn: "India should have its own home-grown Twitter/ Google/ YouTube/
WhatsApp/ FB -- like China has."
To be fair, Indian retail companies give foreign brands like
Starbucks stiff competition in the domestic market, but going global
has been a challenge.
Indian IT services firms, however, have become deeply
entrenched in the global economy, with the likes of TCS and Infosys providing
software solutions to clients world over.
On Sunday, Modi made a "special appeal" for
becoming self-reliant, telling a gathering in Bengaluru that Indian technology
companies made products for the world but "now is the time for us to give
more priority to India's needs."
