‘Learning’, ‘Local first’ key web search trends of 2020
Queries for jobs and online courses rose while more people used Google Translate
The extraordinary circumstances and uncertainty of 2020 triggered by the pandemic and the accelerated digital adoption during the year saw Indians leverage their time spent online in pursuit of progress, said Google in an annual report. The findings revealed that overall, in 2020, Indians asked 50% more questions leading with ‘why’ than ever before.
The top trends included a spike in queries for “learning", increased demand for local language content and local information, and use of Google Translate with new digital users coming from smaller towns.
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The report, titled Year in Search: India for determined progress, confirmed the geographical expansion of digital users in tier 2, tier 3, and tier 4 markets with searches from these growing by 1.5X over metro and tier 1 cities. This has led to an increase in the importance of the voice, video, and vernacular trend that was first established in 2017, for a wide variety of uses, particularly in overcoming language barriers.
Another shift in user behaviour was demonstrated in the queries for “learn", which was up 32% year-on-year (y-o-y). Learning anything, anywhere, was one among the three major changes in user behaviour that emerged based on search trends across search, YouTube, voice assistant, and Chrome in 2020. The searches for learning went beyond academics, which had already gone online. The focus moved to learning for career progression, up-skilling, entrepreneurship, and supplementary income through investing in the stock market.
The report said there was a 160% y-o-y growth in searches for work from home jobs and more than 86% y-o-y growth in searches for “online course", compared to flat growth in the previous years.
The other key theme was “Local first", which focused on greater demand and consumption of both local language content and local information. More than 90% of YouTube users prefer watching content in Indic languages, it noted.
That regional languages were popular was evident in people using Google Translate 17 billion times to render web pages in Indian languages. In addition, one-third of Google Assistant users in the country are also using it in an Indic language.
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The report also stated that 2020 has redefined ‘value’ with a rise in online searches for purchases from a broader set of high-value and high-involvement categories including grocery, medicine, and even cars.
Around 50% of auto consumers, including four- and two-wheelers, would consider “buying online" if given an option. There has been 30% y-o-y growth in searches for “second-hand car" while “second-hand laptops" recorded a 64% increase in search queries.
The year also saw more than 45% y-o-y growth in searches for “Online store", compared to flat growth in the previous year. This is coupled with increasing comfort with transacting online, as evident in the surge in UPI transactions in 2020 that surpassed the number of transactions in the three years prior.
Sapna Chadha, senior country marketing director, South-East Asia and India, Google, said that 2020 witnessed growth in terms of online users, data traffic and rural data consumption.
“I believe all the trends identified in the report will stay even after the pandemic ends. They are expected to become habits of users. India has leapfrogged when it comes to digital adoption that happened in 2020 and it provides massive opportunity to brands, small businesses, and platforms to further build on this momentum," she noted.
Vernacular and online learning, in particular, will become more pronounced in the coming years, Chadha said.
“At Google, we are focussing on learning and education providing a sharper focus on this vertical through content and partnerships on YouTube. We will continue to invest more in making our products and features better and forging new partnerships to make internet even better for users," she said.
“Marketers must realise that there is an exponential increase in digital audience across demographics that they can reach, provided they talk to them in their language. Brands can also explore ‘online learning’ to educate about category, brand or even causes. People are comfortable buying things online. While this is good news, with every marketer in every category wanting to sell online, it will also pose many challenges," said Anjali Malthankar, national strategy director at digital agency Tonic Worldwide.
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