Kevin Carter

Kevin Carter is the founder and CIO of EMQQ Global, the firm behind the EMQQ emerging markets internet and e-commerce ETF and the INQQ India internet ETF. Carter has spent decades focused on emerging market consumer technology, and he makes a passionate, data-driven case that the biggest investment opportunity of our generation is the rise of the internet consumer in developing countries. On this episode, Kevin joins Brad for a wide-ranging conversation about India, why he thinks most investors are getting emerging markets completely wrong, and what the next decade looks like for internet adoption in the developing world.

The Emerging Market Internet Thesis

Carter's core argument is built on demographics and penetration rates. There are roughly 4 billion people in emerging markets who are getting smartphones and internet access for the first time. These consumers are going to buy things online, stream entertainment, use digital banking, order food delivery, and do everything else that Americans and Europeans already do online. The difference is that the companies serving them are growing at much faster rates because the markets are so early in their adoption curves.

He compares it to investing in Amazon or Google in 2005, except the total addressable market is four to five times larger. EMQQ is designed to capture this trend. The fund holds internet and e-commerce companies across emerging markets, specifically avoiding the state-owned banks, energy companies, and materials firms that dominate traditional emerging market indices. Carter is emphatic about this distinction: the MSCI Emerging Markets Index gives you heavy exposure to old-economy businesses that are not driving growth. The real story is the consumer technology companies, many of which are underweight or absent from those indices entirely.

India: The Standout Opportunity

Carter is particularly bullish on India, which led to the launch of INQQ, their India-specific internet ETF. India has over 1.4 billion people, one of the youngest demographic profiles in the world, and internet penetration that is still in early innings. But what really sets India apart, according to Carter, is the digital infrastructure the country has built.

The UPI (Unified Payments Interface) system is the centerpiece. India processed more real-time digital payments than the rest of the world combined. Carter makes the point that India is ahead of the United States in terms of real-time payment adoption, which is remarkable for a country most investors still think of as "developing." On top of UPI, there's the Aadhaar digital identity system (covering over a billion people) and the Account Aggregator framework, which together create a digital stack that enables fintech and e-commerce companies to operate at massive scale.

The companies benefiting from this include Reliance Jio (which brought cheap data to hundreds of millions through its price war in the telecom market), Zomato in food delivery, and a wave of fintech, e-commerce, and SaaS companies going public on Indian exchanges. Carter argues India could be the single best growth story in public markets over the next 10 to 20 years.

Why Most EM Allocations Miss the Point

Carter gets fired up about how most advisors and institutions allocate to emerging markets. The typical approach is buying a broad EM index fund, which gives you heavy exposure to Chinese state-owned enterprises, commodity producers, and banks. He argues this misses the secular growth story entirely. The companies driving real wealth creation in emerging markets are the technology and consumer platforms, not the old economy industries that dominate the indices.

He also pushes back on the narrative that emerging markets have been a bad investment. If you strip out the traditional index constituents and look at the internet and consumer technology companies specifically, the performance picture looks very different. The problem isn't emerging markets as a category. The problem is what you own within them. Carter sees EMQQ and INQQ as the corrective to this, giving investors targeted exposure to the part of the emerging market economy that is actually growing.

Key Takeaways

• EMQQ targets internet and e-commerce companies in emerging markets, intentionally avoiding the state-owned banks and commodity firms that dominate traditional EM indices.
• India processed more real-time digital payments than the rest of the world combined, driven by the UPI system, putting it ahead of the U.S. in payment infrastructure.
• About 4 billion people in developing countries are getting online for the first time, creating a consumer internet opportunity Carter compares to buying early Amazon or Google but with a 4-5x larger addressable market.
• INQQ is EMQQ's India-specific internet ETF, focused on capturing the growth of Zomato, Reliance Jio, and the broader fintech and e-commerce wave fueled by India's digital stack (UPI, Aadhaar, Account Aggregator).
• Carter argues most EM allocations miss the growth story entirely by defaulting to broad indices weighted toward old economy sectors that aren't driving wealth creation.

Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.