What is Bharat Searching For
Google just came out with its fascinating report on what Bharat actually searched for in 2018. Here is what India's search history reveals ...There are 400 million active internet users in India, making it the second highest in the world. We are adding 40 million new users every year. That is faster than any other country in the world.The average mobile data per subscriber is consuming an average of 8GB of data. How is this changing life for those going online and what does it mean?4G connectivity and access to mobile phones is driving access. That in turn is changing Bharat. Non-metro searches are higher than metros in categories like destination discovery, and international travel. In this case metros refer to New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune.If there is one shift that clear, it is that consumers want to know more, and “do-it-yourself” queries are increasing. In a year’s time half of retail will be influenced by digital. But it will be an informed consumer who will walk in to the store.
Regional language-based search is growing. Many prefer to use voice search which is growing at a staggering 270%. Voice is the fastest way to discover content. That is changing buying behavior. The consumers are making informed choices because Google is making it easy to access information in 9 languages other than English.
Video is growing and is expected to have an audience of half a billion in a year from now. One out of three searches are about entertainment. Watch times for beauty tips has doubled year on year. The top three searches are for “mehendi”, “hair style” and “make-up”.
Dating searches have grown by 40% - which is faster than matrimonial searches. But searches on matrimony are three times more than dating searches.
Courses on software development have shown a 74% increase. AI/ML course related searches have jumped by 54%. Watch times for hobby as well as science videos have tripled. Maybe the $650 million investment in EdTech needs to take stock of where and how the new learner is changing.
Maybe the increased interest in entrepreneurship as an option could explain the 100% growth in queries related to Co-Working spaces when it comes to real-estate queries.
That is the magic of the digital world. It makes the whole world boundaryless. It opens up the world as a talent pool. Learners can bypass the limitations of poor educational infrastructure. The watch time for beauty tips doubled year on year in 2018. Bharat is getting ready to meet the rest of the world.Here are some notes I took
