Raghav Bansal, Consultant at Avalon Consulting, shared his views on India’s ageing population in the article “Understanding Consumption Behaviour of the Ageing Population: India’s Silent Growth Engine.”
He highlighted that India’s rapidly growing elderly population is emerging as a significant consumption driver, creating a large “silver economy” opportunity across sectors such as banking, retail, hospitality, electronics, and healthcare. The article notes that ageing consumers prioritize trust, simplicity, security, human interaction, and long-term value over speed and novelty, yet remain underserved by today’s youth-centric business models.
Further, he suggested that companies must redesign products, services, and customer journeys around accessibility, trust-rich interactions, and life-stage realities to effectively cater to this expanding and increasingly connected consumer segment.
India, with a median age of 28 years compared to 38 years in China and 48 years in Japan, is one of the youngest countries in the world. The share of elderly Indians is rising fast, however. With 12% of the population being elderly as of now, this number is projected to reach about 230 Mn people in 2036 and 345 Mn people by 2050 (about 20% of the population). This powers a “silver economy” positioned for multi-fold growth. By 2100, 1 out of every 4 people in India will be over 65 years of age. Thus, ageing consumers in India are no longer a marginal segment. They are a critical demand driver that businesses can no longer afford to overlook.
India’s Ageing Population (60+ yrs) from 2000-2050F (In Mn)
India – A Young Country with an Ageing Edge
India’s demographic dividend is expected to last int the 2040s, with a large working-age population and a median age still in the late twenties. The same is also reflected in the 2025 ageing population percentage numbers of India compared with other countries.
Ageing Population % for Various Countries – 2025
Out of 100 people, how many people are 65+ yrs old?
However, as seen in economies like Russia, which is expected to face labour shortages by the early 2030s as large cohorts retire, the transition from “young” to “ageing” can be sharp and economically disruptive if not anticipated. Rising cost of living and life expectancies are not helping. This large percentage of population are nearing retirement and are either dependent on children or are looking for alternate employment since savings are insufficient to meet demands. For India, building an economy that understands and serves older consumers is part of future-proofing growth, not just social policy.
When Channels Assume Youth
Most customer-facing channels in India—apps, branch formats, store designs, call centres, even loyalty programs—are implicitly designed around younger, digital-first, high-churn customers. From friction-heavy IVR menus in banks to dark-store grocery apps and QR code–driven restaurant experiences, the default user persona is tech-comfortable, time-poor, and willing to self-serve. Older customers, by contrast, often prioritise clarity, personal assistance, and relationship continuity over speed or novelty, which today’s sales models frequently under-serve.
This is not because seniors are offline. Markets such as Japan break the myth that seniors are digitally handicapped with smartphone penetration of above 80% with 90% of people in their 60s using internet. Evidence from China shows that digital use among older adults improves lifestyle quality and social participation. The real gap is not connectivity, but whether products and journeys reflect older consumers’ values and risks.
What Drives the Ageing Consumer?
Across sectors, ageing consumers tend to anchor their decisions based on a combination of factors like trust, perceived security, simplicity, long-term value, health and family considerations.
- Banking and payments: Older consumers are sensitive to fraud risk, hidden charges, and complex UI. They value in-person reassurances, clear costing structures, and human help at key interaction endpoints.
- Retail and consumer electronics: Ageing consumers value reliability, after-sales service, warranties, and ease of use. Cutting-edge features are of low priority. Clear communication and demonstrations can prove to be as important as discounts.
- Hospitality and travel: Safety, accessibility, predictability, and respectful service outrank hyper-personalised upsells. Package clarity and the ability to speak to a human when plans change are pivotal.
- Food & beverage: Health, hygiene, dietary needs, and familiarity are the most common factors that guide consumer choices for this cohort. They have now begun to drive premium demand for quality and experience in the F&B sector now.
Various patterns around consumption behaviour can be inferred from these commonalities – a need for trust-rich interactions, low cognitive load, consistent human support, and products calibrated to life-stage realities rather than youth trends.
Broad themes from L2 and L3 themes that affects consumption behaviour in ageing population
Broad themes from Sub-themes and Main themes
Ageing Consumers: Behaviour, Gaps, and What Firms Must Do
All the sub-themes and emerging themes can be brought together under five broad themes that define the gap and the opportunity with ageing consumers in India.
| Broad theme | Behaviour | Gap | What firms must do? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trust and Long-term Relationships | Older consumers gravitate to familiar, established brands and people, value consistency over novelty, and seek transactions that make them feel respected, informed and emotionally secure rather than rushed or sales-driven | Current models prioritise short-term campaigns and automated touchpoints, creating impersonal, jargon-heavy experiences that weaken relationship continuity and make seniors feel unsure, sidelined or wary of being misled | Build relationship-based service with named advisors, simple and empathetic communication, and loyalty mechanisms that reward tenure and reliability, so that every interaction reinforces long-term trust and emotional comfort |
| Technological Confidence and Hybrid Adoption | Seniors do adopt digital tools but prefer to combine them with tangible options— cash, paper proofs, in-person interactions—and feel more confident when they can fall back on human help and stable, predictable interfaces | “Digital-only” or rapidly changing journeys assume high tech fluency, offer limited assisted paths, and push seniors into channels where errors feel high-stakes and irrecoverable, reinforcing technology anxiety | Design hybrid, assisted journeys with stable interfaces, easy access to people, and clear training or guidance so that technology enhances, rather than replaces, their preferred ways of transacting |
| Risk Aversion, Security and Financial Prudence | Ageing consumers are cautious, highly value-conscious, and strongly averse to loss, preferring durable products, transparent pricing, and arrangements that clearly protect them from fraud, hidden charges or regretful decisions | Many offerings still foreground discounts, or headline returns while burying conditions and risks in complex terms, with slow or opaque redressal processes that undermine their need for safety and control | Offer plainly structured, low-surprise products backed by visible guarantees and fast, fair problem resolution, so seniors can see exactly what they are signing up for and feel financially secure |
| Family, Social Support and Shared Decisions | Older adults frequently discuss major purchases and digital actions with children or relatives, yet still act as central financial decision-makers for the household, seeking reassurance that the family understands and supports their choices | Journeys and messaging focus on an isolated individual user and rarely acknowledge multi-generational influence, making it harder to involve family formally in decisions or ongoing management | Create family-centric products, permissions and communication that explicitly recognise seniors as primary customers but enable easy involvement of children or caregivers in discovery, approval and ongoing support |
| Health, Mobility and Tangible Convenience | Seniors look for offerings that support health, physical comfort and ease of movement, paying close attention to ergonomics, cleanliness, accessibility and the tangible effort required to use spaces or products | Many physical and service environments are optimised for younger, fully mobile users, with layouts, print sizes, queues and packaging that unintentionally make routine tasks tiring or uncomfortable for older customers | Redesign spaces, packaging and service routines around accessibility and comfort— clear signage, seating, ramps, ergonomic products and proactive but non-patronising assistance—so that engaging with the brand feels physically easy and dignified |
Ageing Indians are not laggards, they are an under-served, asset-rich, and increasingly connected cohort. Many of them also happen to be major decision makers for their sub-18-year-olds. Their choices will shape demand in banking, retail, hospitality, electronics, F&B and other sectors over the next two decades. Companies must re-anchor their models around trust, security, human connection, and accessible design, to be best placed to serve this silent growth engine of India’s consumption story.
Raghav Bansal
Raghav Bansal is a management consultant at Avalon Consulting, specializing in automotive sector analysis and business strategy. He has prior experience in digital transformation, customer satisfaction research for Indian OEMs, and process improvements. Bringing a structured problem-solving mindset to every engagement, Raghav has deep interest in how market dynamics shape modern business strategy.
