The last financial year saw nearly 35% audience growth in the Indian online industry (not counting folks who are accessing internet through their phones). Social interaction, convenience, plugging into global trends and companies giving the online consumer her due are all factors that have contributed to this massive growth. Of course, customised broadband plans and data cards played their role in online uptake. But what played an even bigger role was the adoption of online as the medium of choice by the Indian youth, and this got underscored by brands realising that they now have a medium through social media which allows for two-way interaction and engagement.
While industry grew 35%, most online categories grew even bigger and faster. Two categories stood out in the list of 20 categories that got tracked by ViziSense in their first ?annual web tracker? report that studies the growth of monthly unique users for websites accessed out of India; social media and e-commerce. It wouldn?t surprise anyone that the user base of Facebook grew over 100% over the last year in India and led the huge growth in the social media category. But while social media and Facebook grew, they have grown at the cost of portals and email sites. The latter categories saw almost stagnant or below industry growth due to Facebook ?stealing? their cheese. The other ?hot? category that kept everyone engaged and created an army of first-time shoppers was group buying or flash sales sites. They brought alive the services e-commerce industry and lead the mandate for the growth of the non-travel e-commerce industry. Having said that, travel e-commerce too grew beyond industry growth. IRCTC grew over 45% reaching the 10 million user mark while Makemytrip continued to dominate the OTAs category.
The other dominant theme that was witnessed in the findings of this report was that conventional market leaders don?t necessarily lead the online usage within that category. For instance, in airlines ? while Jet Airways clearly leads the pack, Indigo Airlines has consistently been the leading online site since January 2010 within the category, given the consistent growth in their monthly unique users. In the same vein, YahooMail ? traditionally the market leader in email is now lagging behind Gmail by a gap of 30%. Even within the traditional banking space, while ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank continue to lead, State Bank of India saw a surge of 90% in their user base over the last year.
Some categories also benefitted from key events or growth within the ecosystem. A great example of this was the surge in the sports category last year with the World Cup, Olympics and the Indian Premier League ? all taking place within 2010-11. Yahoo Cricket and ESPN both gained from these events. Similarly, the huge offtake of data cards have got Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications to lead the pack within the mobile service providers? category, ahead of leaders such as Airtel and Vodafone.
The other key trend that emerged was the visible category leaders, who cemented their leadership in these categories despite emerging competition and growth in marketing dollars. Quikr continues to lead the B2C classifieds space, Yahoo Movies leads the entertainment space, Naukri leads the jobs category and Indiamart leads the B2B Classifieds category and Magicbricks leads the real estate category.
Be it the online purchase of a product or simply the use of internet for seeking information on products, prices, reviews, product comparisons, etc., consumers are leveraging the internet to their advantage. This also means that marketers now have a great opportunity to be in sync with the needs of the consumers and build a relevant connect with them through a targeted online two-way communication which is more effective and reduces spillage of advertising dollars.
With 3G in the offing, broadband penetration increasing and the internet economy globally getting hotter, the trends next year from the same report could definitely have loads of surprises. Till then, let?s continue to spin the web.
The author is business head of ViziSense, an online audience measurement platform of Komli Media.