Google India released a report which shares some interesting facts about the use of Google search engine for automobile research trends in India. The report, known as the “Google India Auto Report” reveals how Indian car and bike buyers and fans rely on Internet before they make their purchase decision. As per the data stated in the report, in India, 65% of people do their initial research about the automobiles on the Internet, this figure is 62% for US and Europe.
Amongst other notable trends, Car finance queries also saw steep increase of over 51% percent 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.
In terms of type of queries, vehicle-shopping queries accounted for over 49% of all cars related queries. Interestingly, in-spite of the choices available in fuel efficient small cars category, Diesel cars queries saw a huge jump in query volumes registering 114% growth in 2010.
Searches for bikes makes and models also show robust growth ahead of cars, with bike related queries growing 96% in 2010. The trend of using smartphones for doing product related searches is also showing a significant growth.
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% growth YoY, followed by Luxury cars in the price range of (15 lakhs to 30 lakhs) which emerged as the fastest growing car category showing a growth of 141% from June 2010 to May 2011 over the same period in ‘09 to ‘10.
The facts revealed in the report sound interesting and reveal that India automobile buyers are more informed of their purchase and they have more information of the car or bike before they buy it.
