Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   The Indian Car Scene (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/)

-   -   Google's Report on the Auto Industry : Search Trends & Buyer Behaviour (2012) (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/121568-googles-report-auto-industry-search-trends-buyer-behaviour-2012-a.html)

Overview of Indian Internet Usage

• India has 121 Million Internet users. The 3rd largest user-base, behind China and USA.
• 2011 showed a 38% Y-o-Y growth in the number of Indian Internet users
• 20 Million of these 121 Million users are only mobile users (i.e. don't ever use a computer)
• Compare this to our paltry 20 Million Internet users just 5 years back
• Expectations are set at 300 Million users by 2014, which would put India at 2nd place

The Survey

• Nielsen did the off-line surveys for Google
• There were 2791 respondents. 8 major cities and 234 dealerships (of 7 manufacturers). Survey conducted in Jan-Feb 2012.
• All respondents had just exited a car dealership before they were given the survey

Respondents turned out to be predominantly: Male, SEC A, 25-34 yrs old, and looking to spend < 6 lakhs


Findings

• 50% of buyers research online before going into the dealership
• 96% of the onliners use a search engine (the other 4% come directly to Team-BHP ?? :D)
• 54% of the onliners change their brand consideration set after doing online research!
• 72% trust the OEM websites for the most accurate information

Online is a large part, but here's what the full break-up of first-pick information sources was


An upcoming trend is the desire to view video reviews of the car. Here's where the videos were watched
(YouTube has 31 Million of India's Internet users visiting the site)

Online Search Trends

• Online searches for the auto segment have grown 70% YoY.
• Note: The auto segment as a whole did NOT grow this much, its the number of searches that have grown due to more people using the Internet. Also this figure does not include mobile users.
• The growth has been calculated separately for mobile at 125% YoY, and 242% YoY for smart phones.
• Though the growth for smart phones has been much higher, they still come in somewhere between 15-20 Million users, whereas mobile users are currently at 50+ Million.

You can see the overall growth in 2011 compared to the last 2 years. Also note Diwali and the end of the financial year influencing the number of searches


The auto vertical is not the largest, but indeed the fastest growing


Search queries by type of car (once again, this is GROWTH, not total). Interesting to see that there's the least growth in the popular Hatchbacks segment. This could also be looked at as there being much more new interest in other segments, like SUVs, premium sedans, etc


Google India put together a list of the most searched for cars in 2011.
They looked at the interest (search query) volumes during a window of 13 weeks around the car's launch.
6 weeks before launch + 1 week of launch + 6 weeks after launch.


The Kizashi's presence at number 5 perplexed quite a few people at Google! But i guess this goes to show what some advertising combined with a giant and popular name like Maruti can do. I'd say all of these rankings are greatly linked to advertising reach (online, print and TV) and ad campaign timing - rather than actual purchase intent.

The industry has seen a 100% spend growth on digital marketing in the last year too. Don't forget that revealing this data is also Google's hint to Auto OEMs - as Google makes money on their huge online advertising platforms, reaching over a 100 Million of the Indian Internet users. :)

A quick re-cap of the 5 most interesting findings (as per Google)



Last year's Google report can be found at this link!

Here is what is important :
"There were 2791 respondents. 8 major cities and 234 dealerships (of 7 manufacturers). Survey conducted in Jan-Feb 2012."

So what is the overall %ge of cars sold in Cities to buyers who are comfortable & plugged into internet all the time vs the cars sold outside these areas, to people who may not be in IT, plugged in all the time & very comfortable with the information on the web?

The sample only shows a shift in the preference of people towards researching online in the cities. It is a definitely good one to have as the penetration of internet deepens in the country. But for now, seems like a marketing pitch. :)

So what should the auto industry make from this report?

Moral of story: Team-Bhp has a bright future. $$$$ ;)

Interesting trends. Was there any findings about which are the most visited sites after an online search (other the manufacturer sites). Is Team-BHP at the top??:)

It should be friend / relatives/ colleagues & team-bhp, as its an extended community for a lot.

I know quite a few people who have changed their opinion after going through friendly advice from others here.

Majority of the activities surround the launch, marketing campaigns and also user interest around the time.

I am more curious on what twitter can reveal about car (search/research/buying) tastes.

Thanks for sharing. The number of internet users and its growth % is really exciting.

The sample size and the population selected does skew the result a lot. Cars are increasingly being sold in smaller towns and if we include those into this, the online search may not be more than 20-30% (my guess).

Most important takeaway for car companies are,

1. Invest more money to Improve their website utility and performance
2. Have mobile friendly websites.
3. Allocate more budget for online deals and offers to attract more visitors to go through their websites.
4. Spend more money on Google Ads!!! (The hidden message from google :D )

\\hkp

The google research shows google a threat to itself. 47 v/s 42 as people and not search. How to do you ask people in the Digital age? That is the threat that Google itself is facing! How else can one justify (is it justified anyways!) a $100 IPO?

Now coming to the point, is there somewhere to know how many search results lead to Team-Bhp from google? Is it also possible to know how what is our search ranking?

it will be interesting to see how many ppl actually make their final decision based on what they see/read on the net.Most of these customers already have a fairly strong idea of what they want. Net reviews/browsing are just a means to:
-reinforce their choice-gives them the satisfaction of having (going to) take(n) the right decision.
-search for facts/figures/prices and do feature comparisons.
-search for outlets/service network/offers.
In other words it is not really probable that Internet as a medium has the capability of changing someone's purchase decision especially that requires considerable investment.
Internet search engines can try their best (and come up with surveys like this)but nothing can beat Friends/family/relatives as the best influencers.

Honestly, i'm never a blind believer in surveys. Like you mentioned, location of the surveys, (and even phrasing of the questions and results) can play a huge part in what the survey shows - and i'm quite particular about stuff like that!

However, like you said we can assume that this is the trend that will carry out even to smaller towns etc as internet penetration increases.

Nope. No mention of any websites at all. There are other free tools for this (alexa, comscore, etc), but there is always some variance.

Thats exactly what i thought when i saw that slide :) (i.e. Team-BHP is kind of a mix between "search online" and "friends/relatives/colleagues")

Check out this site : Sentiment140 - A Twitter Sentiment Analysis Tool

Its good for a quick look, but don't trust the %ages and analysis too much as its based on tiny sample sizes.

No doubt this is the most important one.

A good website not only gets you #1 in search results (you'd be surprised how many manufacturers aren't even in the top 3 results for their own car!!), but it also gets users and keeps them there if you have enough information and interactive elements.

Like people said a few years back : Whats the next big thing? Social Search! It merges "search online" with "friends and relatives". 47 + 42!

Of course, google tried something similar with their google+ "+1" system for pages, however, can't really say its taken off as well as they expected.

More than half our traffic comes from search.

In comparison, the $100 IPO brings in about 1/20th of that amount at the moment. Though that number is growing!

Not sure i'd agree with that. Sometimes initial choices are made based on what you see on the internet (then of course, followed up with real-person advice/views). Other times its the other way around, the finishing touches are put on the decision based on online reviews. Just look at the number of ownership threads that say "Thanks to member-xyz for his review, as it helped me finalize my choice." :)

cya
R

Very interesting and informative.

I do not know how impact of advise from "knowledgeable" source can be researched / rated but I suspect that the online+clued in people also are a major reference source for many car buyers.

I can personally say that in last one year I must have influenced ~50 people in their final choice of vehicle. And for me online forums etc. are very important input resource.

What i particularly liked is 54% of buyers changed their consideration set after online research. This means a lot of people are doing decent amount of research before signing the dotted line, i.e. more informed decision making.

Also worth noting is research was done online and not using some popular automotive journal. Keeping this in mind the future of Team BHP looks even more bright, hopefully buyers are realizing the team BHP reviews (Official and Ownership) are most authentic and exhaustive in nature.

Something i saw in this slide caught my attention.

In 2009 & 2010, March ramps up into a small peak in April.

However, in 2011, the peak is in March, and search numbers take a big dip in April. (The opposite of the earlier 2 years).


Any insights on this? Was it budget related? Were there some car launches directly around this time?

cya
R

Hi rehaan,
Can you tell us the statistical data retrieved from Google Analytics .com of number of hits and its demographics for Team Bhp website?