NEW DELHI, September 8: Yahoo, Indiatimes, Rediff, MSN and Sify have emerged as the established generic portals in a recent survey of popular websites. Google, Naukri and Shaadi among others have earned good niche audiences. The study also found that most popular Net activities are social and professional interaction, keeping track of news and events, check for sports and cinema content, information search and employment.
These are some of the many findings laid threadbare by one of the largest online surveys conducted by JuxtConsult in April 2005 among Internet users in India. The survey sampled more than 30,000 individuals to unravel the identity of Net users along with their lifestyle choices. To estimate the penetration of the Internet among urban Indians, a telephonic survey of 3,000 people was also executed in 10 cities. JuxtConsult is a joint effort of Indicus Analytics and Webchutney.
As much of 96 per cent of Internet consumers use the Net for personal emailing, 72 per cent check news and events, 63 per cent are online for career enhancements, 58 per cent download application forms, while 57 per cent use it for personal emailing. The upper limit of the total number of urban Net users is estimated at 23 million. Around 17.5 million of these urban Indians use the Internet with certain consistency, while another 5.2 million do it sparingly. This puts the penetration of Internet among urban Indians at 9 per cent.
Yahoo is the most preferred channel for communication � both for both for email and instant messaging. Among email providers, Yahoo has 38 per cent user share. Rediff and Hotmail follow close behind with 21 per cent and 18 per cent user base respectively. Gmail, a relatively new player in the field, is estimated to have 5 per cent user base and looks set to firmly establish itself as an email service provider. Yahoo is also the most popular medium for instant messaging and commands 74 per cent share. Hotmail’s MSN messenger is a distant second with just 15 per cent users using it.
An overwhelming 75 per cent of the Net users in India searches for information on Google. Googling for answers has caught on as one of the most visible trends within the Netizen community today. Yahoo provides answers to 6 per cent of users while 3 per cent users are find theirs through Rediff.
Twelve per cent of all Net users look for life partners online. Of these, 31 per cent head to Shaadi, owned by the same firm that owns Fropper, which also figures in the list of top ten matchmaking sites. Bharatmatrimony gets 16 per cent of votes from users who search for their significant others on the Web. An equal share also goes to the Indiatimes dating service and Timesmatri, which have different orientations but are owned by the same group. Yahoo and Rediff are marginally popular in the online matchmaking arena with their Yahoo Personals and Rediff Matchmaker services.
Fortyfour per cent of users prefer to shop online at ebay.in, formerly Baazee. Twentytwo per cent of users pick Rediff as their choice of online shopping channel, while 17 per cent users shop online at Indiatimes. Books and CDs are biggest online buys. Along with these, household and electronic appliances along with clothes/accessories are other popular goods bought on the Web.
Naukri is the biggest recruitment portal � some 46 per cent Netizens prefer this site, which offers a host of employment related services. Second ranked is Monster with 20 per cent users opting for it as their preferred job site. Jobsahead comes third. However, owing to Monster’s recent acquisition of Jobsahead, the e-recruitment category may witness renewed competition.
Only 17 per cent of net users in India are bold enough to admit to surfing pornographic content on the Web. Among them, Desibaba is the top ranked website for surfing adult content. It leads the category with 16 per cent users. Adult content is also searched through Google catering to 12 per cent consumers of this category. The third ranked adult content site is Yahoo with its multiple channels enabling users to find such material. Indiatimes and Worldsex complete the list of top five websites for adult content on the Web.
