Google dominates the Internet market in India: comScore

Internet and mobile research firm comScore has released a report which reveals that Google owned properties dominate the Internet market in India.

The findings of the study are based on the total minutes spent on Google owned websites out of the total minutes spent online in July 2009.

Not only search, Google is also ahead in the social networking and online video consumption space in India. Of the total time spent on social networking sites and videos, 68.2 per cent was recorded on Orkut and 82.8 per cent on YouTube. Orkut, with more than 15 million members, is the largest social network in the country.

Google has become a relevant player in the email space in India. Gmail recorded 46.8 per cent share of the total time spent among the various email platforms in July 2009.

The comScore study further highlights that Brazil is the only nation which is ahead of India in terms of usage of Google owned sites. Of the total time spent online in July 2009 in Brazil, 29.8 per cent was on Google owned websites.

In fact, the behaviour of the users towards the usage of Google owned sites for search, social networking, online video consumption and maps is quite similar in Brazil and India.

In Brazil, of the total time spent on various online activities in July 2009, Google dominated in the number of online searches (89.5 per cent of time spent), social networking with Orkut (96 per cent) and online video consumption through YouTube (91.6 per cent).

In an official communiqué, Alex Banks, managing director, comScore Latin America, says, "As it turns out, there are interesting similarities between Brazil and India as emerging Internet markets. Google's prevalence in these markets can perhaps best be explained by the fact that the time at which these markets really began to develop and flourish was around the same time that Google was becoming a major player in the search landscape.

"As a result, Google became the dominant Internet brand in these markets and its success appears to have bled from search into other areas of the web such as social networking."