Amazon Outpacing Flipkart 2:1 in India in Consumer Search Volume, According to New Mobile Majority Report from Jana

Jana today announced findings from its new Mobile Majority trends report, which takes a close look at e-commerce trends and mobile search volume in India. The research was conducted over the last six months of 2017, where popular search terms were analyzed across popular categories and brands within the mCent browser app, the fastest growing browser in India.

The search data revealed that Amazon is an increasingly popular choice over Flipkart as a preferred shopping destination in the region where the global commerce company accounted for 46.01% of all searches within the category. Flipkart remains a distant second to Amazon with 20.90% of searches, while eBay at 9.91%, Snapdeal at 7.87% and Shopclues at 6.77% were the third, fourth and fifth most searched for sites respectively.

According to Forrester, Amazon Prime was a major reason why users were opting for Amazon over Flipkart over the past year, as the company saw 1.5x growth over its closest rival between April and September 2017. The study also confirms earlier reports of Flipkart loosening its grip on Indian consumers, where changes in user behavior have been increasingly favorable to Amazon regarding user engagement and time spent in-app.

“Our data shows Amazon’s marketplace is the first choice among Indian consumers, where searches outpace nearest competitor Flipkart 2x and best popular sites like eBay and Snapdeal by a healthy margin,” said Nathan Eagle, CEO and founder of Jana. “On the product side, it was surprising to see Roku emerge as a clear winner for the streaming device category, nearly doubling the search total of nearest competitor Apple TV and nearly 4x the number of searches over Chromecast.”

Roku Tops All Streaming Devices, iPhone Steals Smartphone Share, and Alexa Crushes Google Home in Smart Home Category Among Indian Shoppers

Top shopping categories among Indian shoppers overall included Laptops (30.89%), Cameras (26.68%), Tablets (15.73%) and Smartphones (15.50%), while Roku (54.38%) was the most popular streaming device in the country with Apple TV coming in second (28.13%), followed by Google Chomecast (13.31%) and Amazon Fire TV (4.17%). In the smart home category, Amazon products drove an overwhelming majority of searches (94.42%) against Google Home (Max, Mini) (5.50%). The report showed that in July through December last year, Apple was a dominant brand in India even with the pervasiveness of Google and Android device use. Among smartphones, iPhone 8 led the pack as the most popular searched for brand (19.26%), followed by iPhone X (13.72%), Vivo V7 (10.60%), Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (9.81%) and Google Pixel (8.58%).

Here’s a look at how brands and categories stacked up overall:

E-commerce categories:

Search terms - % of searches

Amazon - 46.01%

Flipkart - 20.90%

eBay - 9.91%

Snapdeal - 7.87%

Shopclues - 6.77%

Myntra - 4.69%

Other - 3.86%

Shopping categories:

Laptop - 30.89%

Camera - 26.68%

Tablet - 15.73%

Smartphone - 15.50%

Headphones - 6.27%

Other - 4.93%

Smartphone models:

iPhone 8 - 19.26%

iPhone X - 13.72%

Vivo V7 - 10.60%

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 - 9.87%

Google Pixel - 8.58%

OnePlus 5T - 8.44%

Google Pixel 2 - 7.07%

Sony Xperia - 6.45%

Oppo F3 - 4.69%

Xiaomi Redmi - 3.96%

Other - 7.37%

Streaming players:

Roku - 54.38%

Apple TV - 28.13%

Chromecast - 13.31%

Fire TV - 4.17%

Smart home products:

Amazon Alexa (Echo, Dot, Echo Plus) - 89.14%

Google Home (Max, Mini) - 10.79%

Apple (HomePod) - 0.07%

Jana is the largest provider of free internet access in the world and mCent is the second most downloaded browser in India. Jana’s Mobile Majority report is the first installment of unique insights and trends on mobile browsing behavior from subscribers in emerging and high growth markets. For additional questions on the findings, please contact eric@vscconsulting.com.

Survey Methodology      

Research was conducted on mobile search traffic in India over Jana’s mCent browser from July 1, 2017, through December 31, 2017. More than 1.6MM mobile searches were studied overall as generated by mobile subscribers in India.

About Jana

Jana is the largest provider of free internet in emerging markets. Through Jana’s mCent Browser, the next billion smartphone users are coming online without incurring data charges. Jana makes all mobile content freely accessible and discoverable through technology integrated into the billing systems of 311 mobile operators and available to 4.56 billion mobile subscribers. Today, Jana has provided over 40 million emerging market users with free, ad-sponsored internet access. For more information, please visit http://www.jana.com/home or to download the mCent browser, you may visit http://www.mcentbrowser.com/.

Contact Information

Eric Gonzalez

General Manager, NYC

VSC, on behalf of Jana

(1) (412) 272-0836

eric@vscpr.com