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Indians rely on Internet to make auto purchase

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE, INDIA: Google India on Tuesday said that Indian consumers are increasingly relying on the Internet to make auto purchase decisions.

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Providing deep insights into consumer search trends in the auto sector, the search engine giant in its report — Google India Auto Report — said that in the last two years it has seen a great traction amongst the players in the auto vertical as they continue to embrace digital advertising to engage cars and bikes shoppers online.

“The report shows how crucial the Internet has become in influencing purchase decisions of the consumers. In the last two years, we've seen great traction amongst the players in the auto vertical as they continue to embrace digital advertising to engage cars and bikes shoppers online,”said Rajan Anandan, VP and MD of Google India.

He added, “We have seen over 150 per cent growth in revenues from the auto sector in 2010 and we expect the share of auto advertising spends on digital to grow significantly in the next few years.”

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The boom in the auto Industry in India was reflected in the search behavior of Indian users on Google. According to the report, the auto vertical witnessed tremendous growth in online searches registering 110 per cent and 84 per cent growth in 2009 and 2010 respectively on Google Search.

The trend continues to show fast paced growth this year with the auto category showing a growth of 72 per cent in the first six months of 2011 over same period last year. The auto vertical is now also the fastest-growing vertical compared to other key verticals like consumer electronics, finance and travel.

The online search behavior of consumers mirrors the offline world, as query volumes on Google search see a 38 per cent increase over first half of the year as Indian consumers tend to make auto purchases during the festive season (2009 to 2010).

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Indians are also more research oriented when it comes to auto related purchases, with 65 per cent Indians using the Internet as the first place to do their research before deciding on the vehicle of their choice. This is ahead of consumers in mature markets like US and Europe where only 62 per cent of users use Internet as their first stop.

In cars, entry and mid segment cars in the price range of (2 lakhs upto 6 lakhs), the highest selling car category by volumes in India, was also the most-searched category registering over 50 per cent year on year growth in query volumes.

In terms of type of queries, vehicle-shopping queries accounted for over 49 per cent of all cars related queries. The search queries also reflected a strong trend of India's growing appetite for bigger and luxury cars with SUVs emerging as the second most searched cars category registering over 61 per cent growth YoY, followed by Luxury cars in the price range of (15 lakhs to 30 lakhs).

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Amongst other notable trends, car finance queries also saw steep increase of over 51 per cent in 2010. Indians used Google to find out more details about car models, to visit auto websites, do price comparison, used car research and new launch research.

Auto parts queries formed 26 per cent of all car queries again highlighting the use of Internet to find more details about auto parts, dealer and service center network.

Searches for bikes makes and models also show robust growth ahead of cars, with bike related queries growing 96 per cent in 2010. Premium level bikes/motorcycles i.e. bikes in 150 cc plus segment saw maximum query volumes and registered 90 per cent yoy growth (from Jan 2010 to May 2011 compared to same time last last year).

The report also looked into the search habit of mobile Internet users for the auto vertical. With an estimated base of over 40 million mobile Internet users, mobile searches for auto related queries also reflected a strong growth momentum - growing at over 300 per cent in 2010. The trend of using smartphones for doing product related searches is also showing a significant growth, the report says.