60 million Indian women online, says Google study

Google India's 'Women & Web study' released on Thursday shows that 60 million Indian women are online now with 24 million of them accessing the web every day. These women seem to be increasingly searching for skin care, hair care, food and drink among other things, with almost a quarter of these queries originating from mobile phones.

In a press release, Rajan Anandan, VP & Managing Director, Google India said it is heartening to see that women user base is also increasing rapidly in the country.  "With this report, it is clear that Internet is empowering Indian women with easy access to information and helping them to make more informed decisions," he said.

The independent research conducted by TNS Australia looked at search query data for top women oriented categories in India and covered over 1000 women with access to Internet in India. Data showed that about half the women surveyed used the Internet to make a product choice and this was more for skin care (72 per cent), baby care (69 per cent) and hair care (65 per cent) products.

While email, search and social networking were the biggest online activities by women, they were also downloading music, looking for educational content, searching jobs and watching videos. The report also shows that Indian women were opening up to online shopping. Zara, Fastrack, Coca-Cola, Firstcry, Loreal and Oriflame were the top searched brands in various sections last financial year, the report added.

In another indicator of the growing clout of Indian women online, BlackBerry India has announced that 55 per cent of its customers were women.