India’s Population Is Getting Older. What Does That Mean for Brands?

Hey readers,

Welcome to the thirty second edition of D2C Cents!

India has the world’s youngest population.

And somewhere along the way, we started assuming that meant an endless supply of young customers.

But that story has a deadline - faster than the US (19 years) or Indonesia (29 years).

68% of India’s population is working-age today, which is also expected to peak around 2030.

By the time brands notice that growth is getting harder, the customer base may already have changed.

But there’s a big opportunity here too.

India getting older also means TWO huge groups of consumers will become much more important, and most brands are still not paying enough attention to them.

India already has 162.8 million people aged 60+. That number is growing by around 20,000 people every day.

And they have money to spend. Older Indians already spend around $100 billion a year. By 2030, that could be close to $1 trillion.

Yet the same report describes this group as “largely ignored by mainstream marketing.”

Think about that.

Millions of customers with serious spending power and very few brands building for them.

The money is already moving into this group:

• Primus Senior Living raised $20M, led by General Catalyst, with Nikhil Kamath’s Gruhas also investing.

• Age Care Labs, which runs Emoha and Epoch, raised ₹85 Cr toward a ₹250 Cr round. Emoha already has 100,000+ seniors and ₹74.35 Cr in revenue.

• Athulya has already served 35,000+ seniors.

• Even Ratan Tata backed Goodfellows, which connects seniors with young companions.

Brands are starting to build actual products for older people.

There are also brands like Dignity and Friends building around needs such as incontinence.

Most founders haven’t even asked if their category could work for people over 60. That gap is the opportunity.

The lazy way to “serve seniors” is to put an older person in the ad.

But the real opportunity is in the product itself. Think of easier-to-digest and fortified food, skincare for sensitive skin, nutrition built around chronic care. Products that make everyday life easier.

We’ve seen this happen with another group that was once treated as too small or too specific: women.

Earthful built 200,000+ customers and raised ₹26 Cr by creating nutrition products around women’s specific needs, including PCOS, hormones, and sleep.

Nobody calls women’s health “too niche” anymore.

Menopause is an even clearer example.

Menoveda is one of the first brands to build its entire business around menopause. 

Terrapy grew its revenue 11x in one year, offering supplements, coaching, and diagnostics.

That’s not a crowded market. It’s a billion-dollar need that is still largely underserved. And that’s what makes it an opportunity.

And the opportunity goes beyond healthcare.

Senior-focused travel is already emerging. MakeMyTrip, for example, now offers senior-friendly “silver tourism” packages with features such as nurses and pre-travel health checks.

As India gets older, almost every category will have to rethink what its product looks like for an older customer. And the brands that start doing that early could have a very different growth story.

There’s another way India can balance out an ageing population: more women working.

Right now, only around 32% of Indian women are in the workforce, one of the lowest rates among the 19 economies Moody’s compared.

But that number is already changing. Female labour-force participation rose from 21.1% in 2017–18 to 35.6% in 2023–24.

Moody’s estimates that if India can push this closer to 50%, it could add around 1 percentage point to annual GDP growth.

When more women earn their own money, more households go from one income to two. That can mean more spending and more freedom to buy things that were once considered optional.

And women already have huge influence over what gets bought.

They account for 55.5% of textile purchases and influence around 85% of purchasing decisions.

So the opportunity is to understand how women actually live and what makes their lives easier.

Look at brands like BlissClub, which built activewear around women who actually move, and Everpret, which designs bags around the needs of working women.

Don’t just look at the age pyramid. Look at who is getting more money in their hands, and what they will spend it on.

Conclusion

India will remain a huge market. But India won’t stay young forever.

For years, brands could grow by finding more young, first-time buyers.

That will get harder.

The brands that grow next will be the ones that look beyond young customers, at older Indians, working women, and the rest of the household.

There is already a reason to do this. FMCG growth is only around 6–8%, so brands can’t depend on more people entering the market. They need to find new ways to grow with the people already there.

India’s young population was always an advantage.

Now it’s time to prepare for what comes after it.