Back In 2007, Paytm Boss Predicted This ''Big Rush''

Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma took to Twitter this morning to share an email from 2007 in which he predicted a "big rush to own real estate on mobile devices". A screenshot of the email he shared on Twitter shows that Mr Sharma wrote about how Apple could become a problem for music labels as digital music became more popular and phased out CDs. 

"Soon Apple could be a problem for music label itself," he wrote in his email from 14 years ago. 2007 was the year in which Apple launched its first iPhone. The company had already made waves in the music industry with its iPod devices. 

The CEO of Paytm (which was founded three years later in 2010 as a prepaid mobile and DTH recharge platform), predicted that the rise of digital music would ensure that smaller bands would work directly with Apple for revenue share. 

"Now that most of the music will be digital and the biggest store that sell music need not have CDs, small music bands actually will get in direct relationship with Apple and work for revenue share with them," he wrote in his email from January 2007.

He further went on to speak about advances on the "mobile device front", writing: "There is a big rush for real estate on mobile device." The real estate on mobile devices, he explained, referred to client apps made using J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition), Flash etc. 

You can read the email here:

Email from 2007.
“Big rush to own real estate on mobile.” ☺️ pic.twitter.com/qi9bfKhTnA

— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) December 9, 2021

In the comments section, Twitter users noted that Mr Sharma displayed rare foresight in predicting the rise of digital real estate. 

Big Journey Begins from Big Dream and clear vision.

— Ankur Mishra (@iAnkurMishra) December 9, 2021

"One common thing about successful people is that they think way ahead of their times," a Twitter user wrote.

One common thing about successful people is that they think way ahead of their times

— Pratik Bhongade☕ (@mpratik02) December 10, 2021

Vijay Shekhar Sharma made his name in the world of technology with the digital payments app he started in 2010.

"In 2004-05, my father asked me to shut my company and take up a job even if it was for Rs 30,000," Mr Sharma, who went on to found digital payments firm Paytm in 2010, told Reuters.

At the time, the trained engineer sold mobile content via a small company. Mr Sharma would go on to become India's youngest billionaire in 2017.