CHASING DESI DOLLARS

For years, Western companies have understood the potential of 1 billion consumers in India, but now they are slowly starting to realize the purchasing power of people in the U.S. who trace their roots to the subcontinent--a group known as desis.

Why the interest? It's not just America's growing appetite for South Asian culture--movies like Bend It Like Beckham and stars like Bollywood actress and model Aishwarya Rai. The marketing thrust started with the 2000 Census, which revealed that during the 1990s the number of Indians in the U.S. more than doubled--making them the fastest-growing Asian minority. There are some 2.5 million desis in the U.S., and the vast majority are Indian.
South Asians often arrive fluent in English. The influence may be more British than it is American--cricket is preferred to baseball--but a desi in the U.S. can still pick up USA.


Sharmaji ...so wasup