Samsung Tops Search for Mobiles
The internet is impacting decisions of consumers, and mobiles are emerging as a strong medium
Samsung, Nokia, iPhone, Sony, and HTC are the most searched technology brands in mobile phones category on Google search in the period JanuaryOctober 2012. And the most searched tablets during this period include iPad, Aakash, Samsung, Micromax, and HCL, stated a tech shopper report by Google India and AC Nielson.
The report highlighted that internet is now only second to TV to create awareness influencing the behavior of buyers particularly for electronic products. And the easy access to internet is shaping the shift in consumers’ behavior. The report said that 7 out of 10 buyers know the exact brand and model they want to buy with the help of online research before entering the store.
The impact was highest for tier-1 and -2 city consumers with 83% respondents. The use of mobile phones for online research, with 46% respondents saying that they used mobile internet for research and 22% of tier-2 consumers used mobile as the sole device for accessing internet for research.
Rajan Anandan, VP & managing director, sales & operations, Google India says, “This study brings to light 2 important facts—first, internet as a medium has gone mainstream and not only does it help in creating awareness and consideration but it is substantially impacting decisions of final purchases, which was traditionally the role of point-of-sale and in-store sales people. The retailers’ ability to influence a buyer’s mind is diminishing and companies need to look at engaging buyers online about their products and offerings. Secondly, the internet is impacting decisions in tier-2 cities as well and mobiles are emerging as a strong medium.”
He further adds, “The technology vertical is one of the early adopters of digital advertising medium but there is tremendous scope and opportunity for players to fully leverage the digital medium to engage buyers online including mobile—which is growing faster than the PC.”
The study also looked into the price range of different products for which buyers undertake online research and the report revealed that the research intensity was higher for high value products. In the mobile phones category, the research intensity increased when price exceeded 7,000; for laptops when the price exceeded 30,000 and 40,000; and for TVs when the price exceeded 30,000.
The study also looked into the kind of products that most buyers searched for online and among high value purchases—laptops (54%)—emerged as the most searched product category, followed by mobile phones (39%), digital cameras (38%), and televisions (33%). When asked about the reasons to visit the stores to purchase a product, buyers said that they wanted to get the ‘look & feel’ of the product, check if there are any deals available, negotiate for price, get details on guarantee, get more information on the selected model and some installation advice.
On Google search, the query coming from mobile phones for tech and consumer electronic products were growing 3 times faster than desktop at 86%. In terms of growth rates of search query volumes by products coming from desktop and mobile phones—tablets were the fastest growing product category, growing at 160% y-o-y; this was followed by televisions growing at 51% y-o-y, mobile phones at 41%, laptops at 39% followed by digital cameras at 29% y-o-y.
Google also looked at the most searched technology brands by product category on Google search for the period of Jan 2012 to October 2012:
As a part of the research methodology a pan-India research was conducted at 200 multi-brand and single-brand stores with a total of 3,677 respondents from 12 cities—(4 metros) Mumbai, NCR, Chennai, Kolkata; tier-1 cities—Chandigarh, Pune, Indore, Coimbatore; tier-2 cities—Kanpur, Vadodara, Kochi, Bhubaneswar.
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