Alto K10 is most-googled car

Google India’s auto report, a compilation of consumer search behavior in the auto category (cars and bikes) in 2009 and 2010 underlines how Indian consumers are increasingly relying on the Internet to make auto purchase decisions.

Rajan Anandan vice president and MD of Google India, said, “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 car and bikes shoppers online. We have seen over 150 percent growth in revenues from the auto sector in 2010. We expect the share of auto advertising spends on digital to grow significantly in the next few years”

According to the report, the auto vertical witnessed tremendous growth in online searches registering 110 percent and 84 percent growth in 2009 and 2010 respectively on Google Search. The auto category grew 72 percent in January-June 2011 over same period last year and is the fastest-growing vertical as compared to consumer electronics, finance and travel.

The online search behaviour of consumers mirrors the offline world, as query volumes on Google search went up 38 percent in first half of 2011 as consumers tend to make auto purchases during the festive season (2009 to 2010). Indians are also more research oriented when buying cars with 65 percent using the Net first for auto-related research. In mature markets like US and Europe, only 62 percent of users use Internet as their first stop. In cars, entry and mid segment cars in the price range of (Rs 2 lakh to Rs 6 lakh), the highest selling car category by volumes in India, was also the most-searched category registering over 50 percent YOY growth in query volumes. In terms of type of queries, vehicle-shopping queries accounted for over 49 percent of all cars related queries.

Diesel cars queries saw a huge jump in query volumes at 114 percent growth in 2010. Rising petrol prices weighed on car buyers mind as diesel car queries saw a jump of 52 percent during April 2011 to May 2011 when petrol prices increased by 5 Rs/litre.

The search queries also reflected a strong trend for bigger and luxury cars with SUVs emerging as the second most searched cars category registering over 61 percent growth yoy, followed by luxury cars in the price range of (15 lakhs to 30 lakhs) which emerged as the fastest growing car category at a 141 percent growth from June 2010 to May 2011 over the same period in ‘09 to ‘10.

In 2010 and till May 2011 India saw over 25 new cars or variant launches. Amongst all the new launches, the following top 10 cars were the most searched car launches:

• Maruti Alto K10

• Ford Figo

• Hyundai i10 - next gen

• Maruti Kizashi

• Chevrolet Beat

• Nissan Micra