Fortune India - December 2016

The chroniclers of 2016 will have a lot to write about even if they look at the last few months of the year. Demonetisation, the dramatic events at Tata Sons, and the U.S. presidential election defined the last quarter of the year. We look at five big moves of 2016 and examine how they will impact us through 2017 and perhaps after.

But what defined 2016 was not a political or economic or market-related move. It’s a service (for lack of a better word) A service that enables access to products and services, and it is growing in a big way is consumption of mobile data which has gone up by 135% from 2013-14. Moves like demonetisation and the promotion of digital wallets will only see the demand rise. And that’s why we’ve chosen data as the move of 2016.

The face of that move is pretty obvious: the man who shook up the telecom industry by offering a lifetime of free voice calls to subscribers, Mukesh Ambani living the dream of a digital world where everyone and everything is connected with data. A must story to catch on page 60.

We also look at how the emergence of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video will affect incumbent Hotstar, and of how data consumption will go up regardless of who wins that battle. Read this story on page 50

Elsewhere, Mark Zuckerberg has been chosen as Fortune’s businessperson of the year on page 70. Keeping him company are the likes of Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. And finally, a look at how Wall Street veteran Ruth Porat is trying to get the “smart creatives” of Google disciplined. It’s an interesting mix of stories. And all things considered, it looks like it’s going to be an interesting 2017, whether we like it or not! Catch all this and more in our January issue.