Yahoo!, Naukri, Bharatmatrimony among best recalled Net brands

There are close to 21 million urban Internet users in India, says India Online 2006, a research study conducted by JuxtConsult, a Delhi based online research company. So where does an online consumer in India rush when he needs to do a job related search or look for information related to dating, matrimony or business or even book tickets online? Yahoo!, Bharatmatrimony, Naukri, Google, IRCTC and Moneycontrol.

These are just some of the websites from the various categories that have emerged in the Indian digital space and found their way to the second India Online 2006 research. The survey mapped over 20,000 responses from Internet users; an additional 5,500 responses were collected from a land survey to make the findings representative of all Internet users, including regular ones.

According to the survey, Yahoo! is the top of mind brand among urban Indian Internet users. As many as 35 per cent of all Internet users recall it as the first website that comes to their mind. Google has 21 per cent recall, Rediff, 15 per cent recall, and Indiatimes and Hotmail both, 5 per cent recall. It’s no surprise then that these five are also the top five online brands in India. Interestingly, Hotmail has higher mind recall among users than MSN and this is unique to India.

Yahoo! also emerges as the most preferred website visited by Internet users for four of the most 14 popular activities – e-mail, online games, dating/friendship and cinema content.

When it comes to matrimony sites, Bharatmatrimony and Shaadi have the highest preference among consumers and fight it out for the top position in that category. Shaadi.com and Bharatmatrimony.com are the two biggest websites in the online matrimonial space, each with 33 per cent user preference. They command an almost equal share of this classifieds vertical. Some 16 per cent of those who search for their significant others on the web head to Jeevansaathi.com. Interestingly, Jeevansaathi has entered the top three rung this year; last year, it did not even make it to the top five slots.

In the online jobs section, Naukri is far ahead of its competitors. Around 49 per cent of the online audience prefers Naukri as their primary job source. In second rank is Monster.com, with 19 per cent users picking it as their preferred job site. Timesjob.com holds third rank with 7 per cent usage.

Online ticket booking was introduced as a new category in this year’s research. IRCTC.co.in (the railway catering and tourism website) leads this category with 38 per cent user preference, as train tickets are the single largest selling item on the Net. As far as air travel is concerned, Makemytrip.com leads with 9 per cent user share in an otherwise highly competitive segment.

When it comes to content on news and events, the top three websites that users prefer are Indiatimes, NDTV and Rediff. Indiatimes enjoys the position of the most preferred news source on the web. Be it general or event related news, it is the top player in this category with 16 per cent user share, though down dramatically from its share of 30 per cent last year. NDTV.com has 13 per cent market share, while Rediff controls 12 per cent.

Ebay and Google are the leaders in the online shopping and information search categories. Both have retained their lead this year with 38 per cent and 77 per cent preference, respectively, among the surveyed audience. Yahoo! provides answers to 6 per cent of users, Rediff to 4 per cent.

Two new, upcoming categories where sustained growth is expected are mobile content and financial content. While Moneycontrol.com leads the former segment with 12 per cent user preference, Yahoo! and Google are second and third, with 11 per cent and 10 per cent share, respectively.

Rediff is the website of choice for users who download mobile content from the Net with 23 per cent user preference. Yahoo and Indiatimes are the other two preferred websites for mobile downloads.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!