Economy

How Indian cities spend: The differences, similarities, and quirks in between

Shailesh Jha

Jayant Kumar

July 01, 2025 | 9 Min Read

There is a sharp contrast between the spending behaviour of people across India’s seven big cities. A closer look at the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2023-24 shows that.

Key Takeaways

Each big Indian city spends differently across various income groups.
Some, like Mumbai and NCR, are polarised with both high and low-spending households. Others, like Chennai and Ahmedabad, show a more balanced spread.
The real difference between cities lies at the top, and most variation in spending comes from the top 20% of households, while lower-income segments behave similarly across cities.
Spending is up among mid-income households in most cities, but actual wallet sizes are still modest.

There are many Indias within India, and each India spends differently. If Mumbai is a city of extremes, NCR has a lot of high-spending households. Bengaluru and Hyderabad have pockets of affluence, while Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Chennai are more balanced.

In this essay, the first in our series of explorations of seven Tier I cities in India, we decode all this and more.

We have analysed the spending habits of different consumer segments across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad in the last couple of years. We’ve also tried to make sense of the differences in spending, the quirks and commonalities, and what drives them.

For our analysis, we’ve used micro data from the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for FY23 and FY24, covering around 15K households sampled from these cities.

Bi-modal, bridge and balanced: 3 kinds of Tier I cities based on household spending

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