The Indian consumer today is spending the maximum on healthcare, replacing food items, which was the maximum a couple of years ago.
This is primarily due to the fact that health related products and services have become dearer and consumers prefer private healthcare centres to the public ones, according to the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.
Sources said that the demand for health insurance products and fitness services is also on the rise.
It is understood that even the rural consumers prefer private healthcare facilities though they are more expensive than those provided by public medical centres.
As per a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, the total value of the healthcare sector is more than $34 billion in India. This translates to $34 per capita, which is about 6% of the GDP. By 2012, the country?s healthcare sector is expected to touch roughly $40 billion.
The report also indicates that the private sector accounts for more than 80% of total healthcare spending in India. An overall awareness coupled with an increase in health hazards and diseases has pushed the demand for healthcare products.
In addition to healthcare, spends on rent is also very high among the urban Indians. With real estate prices skyrocketing in the recent past, the rent expenditure has seen an increase of about 35-40%.
The consumer in the rural India spends most on travel, apart from health. Earlier, spends were mostly on food and cereals.
The percentage shares of cereals, food and non-food items in total monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) of the rural population are 18.01%, 55.05%, and 44.95%, while for the urban population these are 10.05%, 42.51% and 57.49%. At an all-India level, rural-urban differential in the level of average MPCE was the least in cereals and most in non-food items and this was also true with minor variations across the social groups. ?Monthly household bills on rent, travel or even healthcare products have gone up at the cost of food and that is not very satisfying,? an official source said.