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India Search Market: 1B Searches on Google Sites

Google Sites commanded the strong majority of searches conducted in India, a rapidly emerging internet market, but the frequency of searches there lags behind the global average, according to a comScore study.

Top Indian Search Properties

Google Sites ranked as the top search property in India with more than 1 billion searches conducted in June, representing 81% of the market.

Yahoo Sites ranked second with 9.4%, followed by Ask Network (1.9%) and Microsoft Sites (1.7%). Indian Internet portal Rediff.com ranked fifth with 1.5%.

Search Intensity Lags in India

Despite being one of the most rapidly emerging internet markets in the world in terms of overall usage growth, India exhibits less frequent search behavior than its global counterparts.

Of the 37 countries individually reported on by comScore, India ranked second to last with 53 searches per searcher during the month, well below the worldwide average of 93.

India also had significantly fewer search visits per searcher (14.7 vs. 23.6) and searches per search visit (3.6 vs. 3.9).

“Though India represents more than 15% of the world’s population, it accounts for less than 2% of global Internet searches,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice-president. “It will be interesting to see if this gap narrows as more people in India gain internet access and ramp up their use of search over time.”