FirstCry’s offline and overseas plans as India’s e-commerce story loses steam

Childcare is a huge opportunity in India. After all, no country is home to more children than India, and it doesn’t appear to be giving up that title anytime soon. For every thousand people, Indians gave birth to 16 children in the calendar year 2021. That is roughly 1.5X the birth rate of most developed countries. 

While it is a big opportunity, though, the childcare market is still largely unorganised—something that IPO-bound FirstCry wants to change. Not only is 83% of India’s childcare market unorganised, but perhaps more importantly, its per capita spending on childcare—at less than Rs 9,400—is abysmally low. For context, the same figure for China stands at Rs 50,000.