Independent and Individualistic

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Independent and Individualistic

Published: Mint dated 19th

April 2010

This is the 18th in a 33part

series on distinct

consumer segments,

based on a categorization

of stage of life andoccupation, expenditure

and savings propensity,

family structure and

psychographics. This

weekwe look at the E3

segment -- young, single

chief wage earners, who

live alone and are school

educated businessmen.

Indicus Consumer Segment




With the same occupational and educational profile as the segment taken up in the past few weeks, this

time we look at E3, young, single chief wage earners, who live alone and are school educated

businessmen.

Population-wise this is the smallest segment, less than 70,000 people spread across the country fitting theE3 consumer profile. This cluster/ segment E, that makes up households that would generally correspond to

SEC C/D of the the traditional SEC, in fact, has the highest number of segments within it, a reflection on the

peculiar characteristics that define each small segment. There is a high amount of heterogeneity within this

class, the expenditure and asset ownership characteristics differ significantly across the segments. For

instance, in the last two weeks, we pointed out that house ownership was much higher in the E1 segment

than E2. Our segment this week, E3 has a smaller share of house owners - 64% of these people live in

rented accommodation. If we want to see why there are such significant differences or if we want to see

where these segments are headed in the future, the key lies in their household profile.

E3




Think of the mindset of a person who is

school educated, a businessman and

living alone in the city, without anyfamily support and the E3 segment

comes to life. This segment has

extremely independent individualistic

people in it. At this young age - 37% are

less than 25 years of age - they have

struck out on their own in the city, and

unlike the previous two SEC Esegments dealt with in this column, do

not live with their families ± in the Indian

context, where family plays an important

role in one¶s life, this fact says a lot

about the people who make up this

segment. There is just one caveat,

though, that estimates of characteristicsof these households need to be seen in

the light of the small sample size of this

segment and the high individualistic

nature of the chief wage earners; there

is more heterogeneity within this

segment and outliers will therefore be

more than in other segments.




While 88% of these people have not been married

ever, 12% have already been through a divorce or

been widowed. The largest occupation for these chief wage earners is wholesale and retail trade, making up

29% of the total employment. These are therefore the

small traders selling on the footpath, through small

kiosks or roaming in the city with hand carts etc.

Some of them would even have larger businesses,

employing other people, these are not necessarily

single man enterprises. Manufacturing comes in the

second place at 21%, again low skilled work for these

school educated businessmen, while hotels and

restaurants rank third at 19% - here again we are

looking at a very diversified range of activity, but all

small in scale.

90% of these people earn less than Rs. 3 lakh per

year, low incomes with their low educational profileand single status. However, there are some who have

already moved much higher up, almost 8% of the

segment have income more than Rs. 15 lakh a year,

a reflection of the high heterogeneity in this segment.

These would be those who have scaled up

operations, in trade, hotels, transport businesses etc.




Another peculiar feature is the relatively

higher proportion of expenditure on

education, 4.6%, indicating that these

young people are also making some

investment in raising their skill sets, notnecessarily from the formal colleges, but

maybe through night schools, private

vocational institutes etc. Staying alone in

the city and making maximum use of their

time again shows the keen streak of

independence in this segment.

The states that have a higher concentrationof these households are Maharashtra -

Mumbai, Thane, Pune offering maximum

scope for small businesses, Tamil Nadu -

the most urbanised state with Coimbatore

ranking seventh amongst districts,

Karnataka - here again Bangalore is the

focus city, the only city from the state in thetop 50 districts in this segment, and

Gujarat, famed for its keen business

capabilities with Ahmedabad, Surat and

Rajkot in the top 20 districts. Delhi, with its

high rate of in-migration, ranks third

amongst the districts, behind Mumbai and

Bangalore in E3 households.

Independent and Individualistic

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