Indian car buyers are more aware than ever before with so many Indian and International car brands to choose from. With over 12 crore Internet users in India (about 10% of total population), more and more car buyers are using search engines like Google as their primary source to research about the car they want to purchase. Car buyers research for 9 to 12 weeks before finalizing their car buying decision. Almost half of the car buyers change their decision after watching videos and reading expert and user reviews about a particular car on the Internet. This information has been revealed by world’s leading search engine Google, and the information data has been collected through a survey by and independent firm Nielsen.
Car buyers now give more importance to Internet than TV and Print media. Over 56% of the car byers watch online Videos of the cars before making their final decision to buy a car. The search queries on automobiles in Google India’s total search volumes has increased by about 70% in past one year, use of mobile phone for searching on the web has increased by 125% and use of smartphones in India for search has increased 242% in past one year!
Out of the overall increase in the automobile segment queries on Google India search engine, the SUV queries have increased 83%, premium car queries increased 82%, sedan queries 75%, luxury car 74% and hatchback queries increased by 53%.
To collect the offline data from buyers, Nielsen collected data outside car showrooms of Indian car brands at 234 dealerships across 8 Indian cities. Sample size of the research was 2791 respondents, with 93% male respondents, 75% respondents in age group of 24 to 44 years over a period of January to Feb 2012.
As per the search volumes data collected by Google around the launch of cars in India, the top 10 most searched cars in India include :
- Hyundai Eon
- Mahindra XUV 500
- Honda Brio
- Tata Manza
- Maruti Kizashi
- Toyota Liva
- Hyundai Verna
- Nissan Sunny
- Skoda Rapid
- Ford Fiesta
This trend and study reveals some facts which tell the importance of honest online resources like professional automobile blogs and portals in helping buyers with their buying decision. We at Car Blog India work hard to bring you useful and accurate information about cars, their reviews and other technology resources which help you understand cars better and help you make your buying decision. Do leave your comments and suggestions regarding thee same using comments form below.
