How technology made life easy during Covid-19 lockdown

As people across the country got isolated during the nationwide lockdown – that was enforced to contain the spread of highly contagious Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 – it was an overwhelming experience for some, who spent most of their time out of the house, even as most people remained confined to their homes.

While frontline COVID-19 warriors like doctors, health and sanitation workers, banking and ATM cash delivery staff, security personnel, supplier of essential commodities etc, were forced to stay outdoor, for those locked down at their homes, thankfully, technology was a saviour during the lockdown as people were able to do many things virtually as they stayed indoor to stay safe.

Following are some of the technology segments that made people’s life easy during the lockdown –

OTT Platforms

The term OTT or “over-the-top” is used for the delivery of film and TV content via the internet, for which users don’t need to subscribe to a traditional cable or satellite pay-TV service, the market for which has revolutionised considerably in a way the content is created, distributed, and streamed.

People constantly want a variety of content and especially during the lockdown, OTT catered to this demand magnificently with the perennial additions of varied content.

Without any outdoor entertainment, the lockdown has led to more people inadvertently realising the convenience of OTT, which has already created a shift in the way content is consumed on a day-to-day basis.

During the lockdown period, leading OTT platforms like Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Zee5, AltBalaji, Voot Select saw a substantial rise in viewership and app downloads.

Game Space

To reduce their boredom, one of the activities on which people spend time during the Covid-19 lockdown was playing online games that results into online gaming market in India witnessing a skyrocketing increase in user engagement.

Among the various gaming platforms in India, the gainers include Games2Win, WinZO Games, Hitwicket, Gamerji and Rummy.

Due to postponement of IPL and other live sporting events, fantasy sports gaming players like Dream11 and MPL have seen a major hit, while some of the trending gaming mobile apps during the lockdown were Ludo King, Carrom, Hello.

Online investing

With investments through submission of physical applications got disrupted during the lockdown, people go online to invest in mutual fund (MF), National Pension System (NPS), Unit Linked Insurance Plan (ULIP) as well as to take advantage of market crash due to stalled economic activities during the initial period of lockdown.

Technology adoption in the broking industry has gone quite well for broking houses, with leading broking houses like Angel Broking, Zerodha, IIFL and others have reported a rapid rise in the number of clients over the last few months as investors got more free time to follow the market as they stayed indoors during the lockdown.

Online grocery

As people were fearful of venturing out during the spread of highly infectious COVID-19 Coronavirus, online grocery market has seen a massive growth trajectory, owing to increasing demand among consumers.

Families, especially with infants and the elderly, prefer to stay indoors and place grocery orders online which has resulted in a massive surge in terms of the number of new users that are resorting to online applications for the delivery.

Both new and established players have witnessed spike in growth due to hike in demand during the lockdown.

Fitness & Health

As people refrained from going out for walk or visiting gyms during the lockdown, health and fitness apps have come up with new alternatives for people to remain fit while they stay indoors.

Apps like CureFit and Fittr have introduced live workout sessions for users on their apps as well as on social media platforms to attract fitness conscious people that witnessed decent traction.

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