In today’s digital day and age as consumers are going online and brands are getting to know them a lot more than they used to, a consumer’s choices are no secrets. While decoding what a consumer likes and the attitude towards a brand is something that brands are always keen on knowing. What better way to track consumers via the internet?
The latest edition of the ‘Year in Search – India: Insights for Brands’ which is an interesting compilation of some startling facts put together by Google which focuses on the Top 5 Indian Search Trends that brands must know.
With 350 million connected smartphone users and 400 million active internet users which makes India the 2nd highest in the world and 8GB data is the average consumption amount per user are facts that makes the Indian market extremely lucrative for business.
The first trend, Bharat is going online. Now the word Bharat clearly signifies that non-metro cities play a major part in this growth story. With the rise in the number of connections, searches from non-metro cities across various categories are growing faster than the searches from metros across categories through smartphones. If one dissects the categories which encourage these searches one would see that 55% of all car related searches come from non-metros. While 61% of all searches across personal loans, health insurance, life insurance and mutual funds also come from Non-metro cities.
While video has always been the driver of major developments and success stories across sectors, the online video is reshaping the way consumers gather information and make purchase decisions. A video review of a product or the simple instructional how to use video gets prospective consumers to decide and make the all-important purchase decision. The online video audience is expected to grow to 500 million by 2020. One third of the searches of online video searches are entertainment related. A 1.5X to 3X growth has been observed in other categories such as fashion, education and business in the last 2 years.
Where is the need to type when one can simply search by talking to their smartphones, Voice searches has seen a tremendous growth of 270% on a year on year basis. This trend also states how fast regional languages are growing as the average Indian internet user is adopting this search tool and finding comfort in regional language as 9 out of 10 new Internet users in India are likely to be language users.
While e-commerce and online shopping make it easier for a consumer to shop with a lot of convenience, the brick and mortar way of shopping are all synchronizing their efforts to fulfil the customers’ needs and helping the business to maximise their profits. While all of us Google for important retail outlets with the ‘near me’ search criteria it’s important to notice that there has been a 75% year on year.50% of organized retail is likely to be influenced by digital in 2020.
Assisting Businesses AI and machine learning are assisting businesses to enhance customer experience and improve ROI by simplifying business processes and improving efficiency. Brands such as Uber, Ola and Meru made cab booking available on Google Assistant. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence aren’t the things for future, they are for today. Google has seen a 7X increase in the number of Assistant in India.
