Indians are searching 'dating' more than 'matrimony': Google

Out of the billion search queries that Google gets from India, dating and ordering pizza are two things Indians are most excited about. Indians are coming online at an unprecedented rate and are looking to meet real people online and eventually meet offline, for a pizza, may be.

According to Google, there is 40% growth in dating related searches. It is much faster than the matrimony queries. There is also 37% increase in online dating brand queries versus 13% increase in interest for matrimony brands. On the other hand, Pizza is a favourite among Indian consumers when ordering online.

Google's report also gives other interesting insights regarding people's behaviour in India which could help marketers to better serve their consumers in 2019. The report titled, "Year in Search - India: Insights for Brands", says that the searches in non-metro locations are higher than the searches in metros. Growth in the non-conventional categories like destination activities is driven by consumers in the non-metro cities.

Sharing insights from the report Vikas Agnihotri, Country Director, Google India said; "The online space in India has never been more vibrant. India has become the fastest internet consuming country in the world and the internet has now become the bridge to Bharat's aspirations. As highlighted in the Year in Search Report, the growing influence of online video, increase in usage of language and voice, along with a rise of ML and AI are opportunities for brands and marketers. This enables brands to create relevant experiences to engage and retain customers on a platform that they spend considerable time on."

According to the report, Indian language internet users are expected to account for nearly 75% of India's internet user base by 2021. "Hindi is also gaining traction in the Technology sector with 2X increase in Hindi queries related to laptops and PCs," the report added. 9 out of 10 new internet users in India are likely to be Indian language users.

Google report revealed that Indians love watching videos online. Nearly 33% of searches for online video are related to entertainment and nearly 80% of car buyers use online video for research. Meanwhile other categories like lifestyle, education and business have shown 1.5x - 3x growths in the last 2 year.

With more and more people going online, there has been a marked increase in searches for food aggregator brands with people ordering pizzas the most via mobile apps.  People now are increasingly relying on apps to look for dining out and food delivery options. There has been a 2.5X jump in aggregator brand queries in comparison to the total growth of food tech queries.

Last year saw brand integrating AI and MI powered voice assistants with their customer service to help customers. There has been 7x increase in number of people using Assistants in India. Businesses are also making their services available on voice activated assistants. For e.g. brands like Uber and Ola now allow people to book cabs using Google Assistant.

Edited By: Udit Verma

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