News: India raises toast to new business idea

(PTI 11/08/2006) New Delhi - Import of fine wine to India could well become a big business idea for global entrepreneurs as the tastes of the country's fast-growing middle class are growing beyond swanky cars and jazzy mobiles and now include a bottle of Chardonnay.

Import of fine wine to the country has emerged as one of the "12 Best New Business Opportunities in the World" compiled by a Fortune group magazine.

The Business 2.0 magazine, a part of global media giant CNN-Time Warner Group, said in the cover story of its latest issue that the increasingly refined tastes of India's burgeoning middle class mean that the wine market in the country was set to grow ten-fold over the next decade.

Giving company to the wine import, the country might play host to another big business idea, listed in the same compilation, in the form of creating an advertising network for the country's mobile content developers.

While domestic mobile content market is booming on the back of the mobile industry touching newer heights, it lacks an ad network to help monetise all of those pageviews in a country where the number of cellular customers is expected to jump 71 per cent this year to 130 million.

The smart business idea of creating an ad network for the mobile content market needs an investment of 1,00,000 to half a million dollars, while that for the wine import business could be less than $100,000.

While the wine import business comes with a low-risk level, the mobile ad network business carries medium level of risks, Business 2.0 said.

The magazine said international borders used to be the biggest entry barrier for Americans interested in starting a business overseas. But today, as more nations ease trade regulations and restrictions on foreign investment, borders are more like invitations.

India has already become a prime destination to start importing the US, Australian, and other wine labels to satisfy the increasingly cosmopolitan tastes developing among its people.

Moreover, the the wine boom would largely bypass the domestic brands as the country is too hot for serious viticulture, it said.

To top it all, the duties and excise taxes on imported wine have been slashed considerably over the past two years.

The magazine noted that an American importer who gets in early and establishes a foothold would reap the benefits of even lower duties down the road.