Unprecedented growth of Indian E-Pharmacy Market

The growth of the e-pharmacy sector has increased by up to 35 % compared to last year according to Industry trackers which is almost 3 times the expansion in the number of consumers ordering medicines and the essential substances for Covid-19 online. They claim that the sector is expected to witness much more growth in the current year as well.

Ankur Pahwa who is the Partner and National leader for the E-commerce and Consumer Internet sector of EY India had said that since the base is much more larger, they expect the growth to slow down. He added that the sector will not be able to see a growth of 40-45 % this year, but is still expected to remain high because of the increase of digitalization in the country.

EY has an estimation that the online pharmacy sector in India will grow to around USD 2.7 billion by the year 2023 from USD 360 million in 2019.

1mg is one of the top 3 e-pharmacy firm in the country. The company has said that there has been an increase in the medicines such as Fabiflu and Doxzee which is said to treat the mild cases of Covid-19. The company said that there was an increase of around 40x to 50x in the month of April 2021 compared to March 2021.

The company said that the sales of these drugs would have been higher if they wouldn’t have faced challenges regarding the supply of the drugs. 1mg reported that the demand for the Covid-19 related products was 5 times more in the month of April 2021 compared to the previous month March 2021.

Pharmeasy which is backed by Prosus and the leader of the online pharmacy market in India said that the company is looking forward to provide vaccination for around 30 million people. The company wants to become the largest private player in the vaccination drive in India.

It is planning to work with Corporates, healthcare providers and resident welfare associations.

Even the healthcare booking platform Practo has said that it is planning to largely work with corporates in order to provide vaccination to around 10 million people. The company has already confirmed that around 500 corporates have shown interest and have an employee strength of 1 million.