How ‘Premium’ Quietly Became an Everyday Habit for Millions of Indians

Ask an urban Indian household what has changed in the last few years, and the answer often has less to do with big-ticket purchases and more to do with the small, daily upgrades. The better skincare on the shelf. The premium groceries in the basket. The subscription that removes a daily annoyance. Individually, these choices look minor. Together, they describe one of the most important shifts in Indian consumer life: premium is no longer an occasion. It is becoming a habit. 

The data makes the pattern hard to ignore. According to a Deloitte study prepared with the Retailers Association of India, more than half of all e-commerce sales in the country now come from the premium segment, and more than 40 percent of urban Indian consumers say they are willing to pay more for products that simplify their lives. Premium categories, the report notes, are consistently outgrowing their mass-market counterparts — from personal care to automobiles.

That last phrase — willing to pay more for products that simplify their lives — is the heart of the story. This wave of premiumisation is not about showing off. Analysts describe it as consumers seeking “value with a premium”: better quality and better experiences, but with a clear payoff in everyday ease. People are not buying luxury for its own sake. They are buying back time, comfort, and calm.

SO WHAT DOES A ‘PREMIUM HABIT’ ACTUALLY FEEL LIKE?

It is the difference between dreading a part of your day and quietly looking forward to it. Consider the commute — for most people, the least premium part of the day. It is where the upgrades of modern life tend to stop and the friction begins: the uncertainty of whether a ride will arrive, the noise, the smell of fuel, the fatigue of reaching a destination already drained.

Now imagine that same stretch of the day working the way the rest of a premium lifestyle does. The car arrives when it says it will. The interior is quiet enough to take a call, answer emails, or simply sit with your thoughts. You reach your meeting composed rather than frazzled, with your clothes fresh and your mind clear. The commute stops being the weak link in an otherwise upgraded day.

“I used to treat a good cab ride as a treat for airport trips,” says Meera Rajan, a marketing manager in Gurugram. “Now it’s just how I get to work. The half hour in the car is calm, I actually get things done, and I arrive ready. Once you’ve had that every day, going back feels like a downgrade.”

This is precisely the expectation Green SM is designed to meet. Its premium all-electric service is built not as an occasional splurge but as a dependable, everyday standard — the same quality on a routine Tuesday commute as on an important evening out. The clean interiors, professional drivers, and reliable pickups turn one of the day’s most stressful stretches into one of its most effortless.

“Premium should not be something people ration,” says Mr Bach Tuan Anh, CEO of Green SM India. “Our goal is to make a high standard of travel a normal part of everyday life — reliable enough that you stop thinking about it, and good enough that you never want to go back.”

India’s premium habit is unlikely to reverse. As incomes rise and expectations climb, the definition of an ordinary day keeps getting better. The winners will be the services that understand what these consumers are really buying — not status for its own sake, but a life with less friction in it. For a growing number of Indians, that quiet daily upgrade increasingly begins the moment they step into the car.