Online habits of Indians

Exchange4Media has published a report on the Online habits of Indians. It is quite evident from this survey that the ToI / IndiaTimes strategies are working out. Apart from the financial newspapers, I prefer Rediff for business related content as they seem to have sourcing arrangements from Business Standard, Business World, Forbes and Gita Piramal’s Smart Manager. In recent developments in the Webspace, BharatMatrimony has started a job portal and Naukri has started a property portal. It would be good if this survey covers the market shares of e-trading sites as well.

For news and information, Indian netizens log on to Indiatimes, apparently for its flagship news portal Timesofindia.com. Indiatimes is the front-runner with 30 per cent share, be it general, sports or event-related news. But one thing the portal may not digest is that it stands at an ignoble fourth position when it comes to search for adult content, ahead of many porn websites, including Playboy.

The runner up in the news and information category is the NDTV portal. The website has grown tremendously within a short span of time after the launch of the channel in 2003. It has also been ranked as one of the best foreign news websites by Forbes magazine in the past. Rediff, though famous for breaking news, has to be satisfied with the third position with a 10 per cent user share.

The erstwhile Baazee, now eBay, seems to be the Badshah when it comes to online shopping,with an overwhelming 44 per cent market share, way ahead of Rediff and Indiatimes, which have 22 per cent and 17 per cent shares, respectively.

For searching jobs online, Naukri.com (founded by Sanjeev Bikhchandani) is the preferred destination, way ahead of other players with a whopping 46 per cent share of the market. Monster and Jobsahead follow with 20 per cent and 12 per cent market shares, respectively. Timesjobs.com is ranked fourth with an 8 per cent share.

For searching a life partner, 31 per cent Indian netizens go to Shaadi.com (along with Fropper). There is a tie for the second place between Indiatimes and Bharatmatrimonial with a share of 16 per cent each.