US tech companies are apprehensive about expansion in India due to new IT laws
Social media, IT and interactive platform-based companies around the world have been considering India as their major market. American and other multinational tech companies were considering India as the right investment in comparison to China. But now if the rumblings rising in the board rooms of these companies are to be believed, then the plans of these companies for expansion in India seem to be shelved.
However, so far no company has announced to stop investment projects in India. But their officers admit in a subdued language that such discussions have definitely arisen. As a reason, these companies are counting on government strictness in IT and competition laws. Senior executives of a large technology company operating in India, on the condition of anonymity, say – “Recently there has been an atmosphere of fear in companies.”
“Its impact is visible on both the strategy and operations of the companies.” A ministry official, requesting anonymity, said that the government does not intend to curb Facebook, Twitter or any other social media app. Just as Indian IT companies go to the US to do business, they follow the rules there, similarly, we expect the same from US companies in India.
Till now the plans of the companies were complete.
Statistics show that India is the largest market for Facebook and WhatsApp in terms of the number of users. While the third big one for Twitter.
Last year, Facebook invested 42 thousand crores in Reliance Group’s Jio Platforms.
American company Amazon is preparing to invest 47 thousand crores in India.
Google’s parent company Alphabet has created a fund of 73 thousand crores. This amount will be invested in India in the next 5-7 years.
…but these decisions caused a stir
OTT, online media and social media are being restricted through new IT rules.
The government has clearly told American companies like MasterCard that they will have to keep the data in India itself. MasterCard has complained about this to the US administration.
The Competition Commission of India has not considered the business practices of American company Amazon as clean. Amazon had to remove thousands of products from the platform in 2019 due to the new rules.
