Wine or mobile: India home to big biz ideas

Import of fine wine to India could well become a big business idea for global entrepreneurs as the tastes of the country's fast-growing middle class are growing beyond swanky cars and jazzy mobiles and now include a bottle of Chardonnay.

Import of fine wine to India has emerged as one of the '12 best new business opportunities in the world' compiled by a Fortune group magazine.

The Business 2.0 magazine, a part of global media giant CNN-Time Warner Group, said in the cover story of its latest issue that the increasingly refined tastes of India's burgeoning middle class mean that the wine market in the country was set to grow ten-fold over the next decade.

Giving company to the wine import, India might play host to another big business idea, listed in the same compilation, in the form of creating an advertising network for the country's mobile content developers.

While India's mobile content market is booming on the back of the mobile industry touching newer heights, it lacks an ad network to help monetize all of those page views in a country where the number of cellular customers is expected to jump 71 per cent this year to 130 million.

The smart business idea of creating an ad network for the mobile content market needs an investment of 100,000 to half-a-million dollars, while that for the wine import business could be less than $100,000.

While the wine import business comes with a low-risk level, the mobile ad network business carries medium level of risks, Business 2.0 said.

The magazine said that international borders used to be the biggest entry barrier for Americans interested in starting a business overseas. But today, as more nations ease trade regulations and restrictions on foreign investment, borders are more like invitations.

India has already become a prime destination to start importing the United States, Australian, and other wine labels to satisfy the increasingly cosmopolitan tastes developing among its people.

Moreover, the wine boom would largely bypass the domestic brands as the country is too hot for serious viticulture, it said.

To top it all, the duties and excise taxes on imported wine have been slashed considerably over the past two years.

The magazine noted that an American importer who gets in early and establishes a foothold would reap the benefits of even lower duties down the road.

While acquiring distribution rights is one of the first requirements to start the business, the right selection of wines could also play a key role. The magazine quoted the experts as saying that fruity whites from California and Australia, products that did well in the United States when wine took off in the 1980s, should be on the top of the list.

Also, one does not need an import license and anyone can bring wine from abroad into a warehouse bonded by the nation's customs office.

For the mobile ad network business, the magazine has cited the example of a three-person startup named Mads, which was founded by Ashu Mathura in Amsterdam a few months ago with an investment of about $100,000.

Mads' business includes writing software that collects ads and serves them on mobile Web pages.

The company buys ad space from content publishers such as ringtone sites, mobile game firms and other mobile Internet sites and then sells that space to advertisers.

Mathura wants to soon roll out Mads' service in India, where it sees robust growth potential for ventures like Mads.

The other best startup ideas compiled by Business 2.0 are -- building cheap Wi-Fi networks for Brazilian resorts, becoming a biodiesel producer in Argentina, launch of an exclusive social network for Russian millionaires, opening an American-style restaurant in one of China's fast-growing cities.

Besides the above mentioned ideas, other business ventures include, remodelling homes for China's burgeoning middle class, flipping mining claims in Bolivia, export of the planet's next great wines - from Greece, export of gourmet coffee from Rwanda, becoming a social entrepreneur in South Africa and being among the first to invest in the new Libya.

Besides Business 2.0, the Time Warner group also publishes Fortune, Fortune Small Business and Money magazines.